Jaime Lee
CEO at Jamison Properties
Jamison Properties’ ground-up apartment development in Los Angeles’ Koreatown is called Opus for good reason. The two-building complex on Wilshire Boulevard, which topped out in August, is the first ground-up project that Jamison — one of the city’s largest landlords — is developing on its own. Not only that, but it’s being led by an all-female team.
“Certainly this is unusual, and that’s why we’re really proud of it,” said Jaime Lee.
Leveraging her position for change has been a hallmark of Lee’s leadership style and the direction she’s taken the company founded by her father, Dr. David Lee, who immigrated to L.A. from South Korea. The elder Lee built an empire by buying up commercial buildings first in Koreatown, and then growing that initial portfolio over the decades into the powerhouse it is today.
Since Jaime Lee became CEO in 2014, the company has shifted even more toward housing, and is now the fifth-largest owner of apartments in Los Angeles. It’s also a prolific developer, with 16 projects in various stages of planning and construction. (Dr. Lee remains the company’s chair, while three of his four children share executive responsibilities.)
One of the primary ways that Jamison got into apartments was by converting older office properties into apartments — way before it was cool. That experience with office-to-
residential conversion is in high demand these days.
“The landscape has certainly changed in that the nationwide interest in this work has changed dramatically,” Lee said. “That shift has not changed what we’re doing: tak[ing] underutilized properties — in the current space, that’s office buildings — and converting them and optimizing them.”
Jamison may not have a secret formula for making conversions pencil out, except the most basic one: They already own the properties they’re converting.
In addition to her day job, Lee is a mother of three, and heavily involved in the wider community, with roles on the USC Board of Trustees, the organizing committee for the 2028 Summer Olympics, and the Los Angeles Harbor Commission.
