SAN FRANCISCO—Nina Jaffe Gruen, matriarch, principal behavioral analyst and sociologist, pioneering feminist and art connoisseur, made many contributions to the commercial real estate industry. Gruen was known as Ms. Real Estate to GlobeSt.com readers of her monthly column, Dear Ms. Real Estate, and she published more than 80 articles. Gruen also served on the ALM editorial advisory board.
As executive vice president of Gruen Gruen + Associates, Gruen specialized in the application of sociological, demographic and other social research techniques to marketing, planning and public policy problems. She designed and directed a broad variety of studies utilizing these techniques to probe into the attitudes, motivations, preferences and behavior of important groups for both public and private sector clients. Gruen used these techniques to help define product and geographic markets for antitrust and land use litigation cases. She also analyzed the way in which alternative policies are likely to influence the economic well-being and land use of a community and region. Gruen's work led municipal clients to adopt public policies and infrastructure programs that revitalized areas in California, Arizona, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, New Mexico, Florida, Illinois and Ohio.
In 1982, Gruen became the first woman elected to the Urban Land Institute's board of trustees, where she served until 1997. That year, she was designated an honorary member of ULI and was also a member of the ULI District Council executive committee.
Gruen was chair of the California transportation commission airspace advisory committee from 2002 through 2005. The committee made recommendations to the California transportation commission concerning the use of Caltrans property not required for transportation or other departmental needs. During her 15-year tenure on this committee, Gruen was instrumental in encouraging the division of right-of-way to prepare a five-year airspace business plan with built-in criteria to measure success. This was a first for the California Department of Transportation.
Gruen was past president of International Women's Forum–Northern California, the Bay region affiliate of the International Women's Forum. In 1984, she was the first woman to be elected president of the Western Regional Science Association.
Gruen was also a member of Lambda Alpha International, an honorary land economics society, and Commercial Real Estate Women/CREW SF. She was a frequent speaker on behalf of various real estate groups and was cited in the January 1993 cover story of Real Estate Forum as one of the country's 30 leading women in commercial real estate. Gruen also served on the board of the Zimmerli Museum at Rutgers.
She graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a master of arts degree in psychology from the University of Cincinnati in 1963. Guen is survived by her husband, Claude, sons Leslie, Dale, Adam, Joshua and Aaron, daughters-in-law Kate, Debra, Lisa and Andrea, and grandchildren Daniel, Sarah, David, Michael, Stewart, Rebecca, Leah, Hannah, Jessica, Justin and Kayla.
Condolences have poured in from far and wide as professional colleagues remember her influence in many aspects of the industry. Her husband remarked that he was not able to keep up with acknowledging all of the messages.
A celebration of Gruen's life will be held at Temple Emanuel, 2 Lake St. in San Francisco, at 1:00 p.m. on Sunday, October 15. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to Temple Emanuel.
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Lisa Brown
Lisa Brown is an editor for the south and west regions of GlobeSt.com. She has 25-plus years of real estate experience, with a regional PR role at Grubb & Ellis and a national communications position at MMI. Brown also spent 10 years as executive director at NAIOP San Francisco Bay Area chapter, where she led the organization to achieving its first national award honors and recognition on Capitol Hill. She has written extensively on commercial real estate topics and edited numerous pieces on the subject.
