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People - SEPTEMBER 21, 2017

Nina Gruen passes away

by Andrea Waitrovich

Nina Gruen passed away on Sept. 15.

She was the principal sociologist in charge of market research and analysis at Gruen Gruen + Associates since co-founding the firm with her husband in 1970.

Gruen began her career in real estate in 1963. In an exclusive interview with ULI, she credited her husband, Dr. Claude Gruen, as the person who got her into the real estate world.

Gruen was a pioneer in synthesizing the results of behavioral research with quantitative time-series data to forecast market reactions. Market evaluations and programming studies led by Nina Gruen have resulted in the development and redevelopment of numerous retail, office, industrial, visitor, and residential projects, varying in scale from a single building to large single- and mixed-use projects.

Her work led municipal clients to adopt public policies and infrastructure programs that revitalized areas of California, Arizona, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, New Mexico, Florida, Illinois and Ohio.

Gruen lectured at major universities and published more than 80 articles. Gruen authored two books: Low- and Moderate-Income Housing in the Suburbs: An Analysis for the Dayton, Ohio Region (Praeger Publishers, Inc. 1972), co-authored with Claude Gruen; and Believe It or Not: The Challenges Facing One Professional Woman a Half Century Ago (© Nina J. Gruen, Amazon.com, December 2015).

In 1982, Gruen became the first woman elected to the Urban Land Institute’s Board of Trustees, where she served until 1997.

She was past president (1995-1996) of International Women’s Forum – Northern California, the Bay Region affiliate of the International Women’s Forum. The forum fosters association among preeminent women leaders throughout the world. In 1984, she was the first woman to be elected president of the Western Regional Science Association. She was also a member of Lambda Alpha, an honorary land economics society, and Commercial Real Estate Women.

 

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