Industry figure Alice Connell passes away

Alice Connellhas passed from a brain tumor at the age of 70 on February 24. She started her career in commercial real estate at a time where few women worked in the industry.

During her nearly 40 years of service leading the commercial mortgage lending practice and real estate equity group at TIAA-CREF, she developed the company’s private equity portfolio and helped construct the first strategic plan for its commercial debt portfolio.

In addition, she was a leading member of ULI. Connell joined ULI in 1991, and she remained as a 20-year member of the Urban Development/Mixed-Use Council, a founding member of ULI’s Women’s Leadership Initiative, and a three-term ULI trustee. She served on ULI’s audit committee and the Women’s Leadership Initiative Steering Committee, and she chaired the District Council Chairmen’s Advisory Group. At the local level, she chaired ULI New York from 1999-2001, and she served as on ULI New York’s Women’s Leadership Initiative Committee, Communications Committee, Advisory Board and Governance Committee.

She also served on the board of Empire State Realty Trust, the real estate advisory board of the New York State Common Retirement Fund, the investment advisory board of CBRE Global Investors, the board of RREEF America III, the investment committee of QS REP, and the advisory committees of Parmenter Realty Partners and Park Madison Partners. She was a past board member of the Pension Real Estate Association and WX (New York Women Executives in Real Estate). She is a past member of the executive committee of the Zell-Lurie Real Estate Center of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2003, she was honored by WX as its Real Estate Woman of the Year.

Connell was an alumna of Bishop McDonnell High School and a magna cum laude graduate of St. Bonaventure University.