Jaime Lee, Jamison
Jaime Lee
CEO at Jamison Realty
Jaime Lee seems to do it all.
She runs the leasing and brokerage arm of her family’s real estate business, Jamison, which owns 14 million square feet of office space throughout Southern California. She serves on the boards of several local civic and business organizations, including the California Film Commission, the organizing committee for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, the University of Southern California Board of Trustees, and the Board of Harbor Commissioners for the Port of L.A., of which she is the president.
And she finds time to raise her three young kids — 1- and 3-year-old boys and a 4-year-old girl.
Her firm — which her father, Dr. David Lee, founded in 1994 — also has 2,400 apartments under construction and another 2,000 units in the pipeline. By the end of 2020, Jamison will have opened six residential buildings with 1,400 apartments, including 3350 Wilshire Boulevard, 685 Catalina Street, and 1011 South Serrano Avenue. The other three properties — 3980 Wilshire Boulevard, 411 Normandie Avenue, and 1718 North Las Palmas Avenue — are expected to be complete any day now.
Despite the pandemic, Lee said that residential leasing in L.A. has been chugging along, albeit with landlords offering more free rent than they did pre-COVID.
“There has still been healthy leasing activity, particularly in newer developments,” she said. “There’s a competitive market for concessions, and we’re agile in that. For the most part, rates have stayed the same, but we’re definitely in a concessionary market.”
On the commercial side, that 14 million square feet of office makes up about half of Jamison’s portfolio. The SoCal office market has been struggling for months amid lockdowns and rising numbers of COVID-19 cases.
“Our office buildings are, obviously, a harder story during the pandemic,” Lee said. “We’re looking at building facades, amenities and lobbies, and we’re refreshing them for when demand comes back.”—R.B.R.
