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Nina J. Gruen Executive Vice President Principal Sociologist |
Nina J. Gruen has been the Principal Sociologist in charge of market research and analysis at Gruen Gruen + Associates (GG+A) since co-founding the firm in 1970. Ms. Gruen applies the analytical techniques of the social sciences to estimating the demand for real estate and to understanding the behavior of the groups who determine the success of development, planning, and public policy decisions. She is 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 many retail, office, industrial, visitor, and residential projects, varying in scale from a single building to large single- and mixed-use projects.
Her work has 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. She has worked with private groups to successfully develop home-grown projects like The Flats - transforming a once-abandoned industrial area into a crowded arts, entertainment, and retail district on Cleveland's waterfront. Large development entities, like The Irvine Company, Catellus, UPland Industries, PG&E, and The Prudential Insurance Company of America, as well as many public entities have often used her market studies to decide between alternative product, scale, and timing options for the development of large land holdings. Since 1993, Ms. Gruen has worked with the Asset Planning and Enhancement Brand of the State of California Department of General Services to provide marketing and strategic action planning that has resulted in the disposal of major State properties in Silicon Valley. Since 1999, she has served as Special Master with her husband, Dr. Claude Gruen, for the United States District Court, Northern District of California, for the remediation, enhancement and redevelopment of a major Superfund site in Union City.
Ms. Gruen has lectured at major universities and published over 60 articles. Her seminal works include "Sociological and Cultural Variables in Housing Theory," published in the July 1984 issue of The Annals of Regional Science. Her publications on real estate market conditions and the use of demographic analysis to make profitable development and location decisions include: "Store Location and Customer Behavior" (co-author); "Demographic Changes and Their Effects on Real Estate Markets in the 1980s" (co-author); "What is Special About Specialty Shopping Centers?," and "Public/Private Projects: A Better Way For Downtowns," all published by the Urban Land Institute. She is the co-author with Dr. Claude Gruen, of a highly-respected book, Low- and Moderate-Income Housing in the Suburbs. In March of 2001, "Urban Divide" was published in Urban Land. This article discusses how the U.S. will be divided into gateway and non-gateway communities based on America's changing demographic paradigm. “Born to Shop … Elsewhere” (February 2004) and “The Wal-Mart Effect: Déjà vu All Over Again” (April 2005) were both published by The Institutional Real Estate Letter. “Consumer Preferences (October 2007) and “Replanning Small-City Downtowns”, co-authored with son Aaron Gruen, were both published by Urban Land. In May of 2011, she co-authored “Boomers, Echo’s and X’s: Generational and other Structural Shifts and Their Impacts on Future Demand for Real Estate in the Coming Decade” with Alan Billingsley, Director, Head Americas Research, RREEF/DB Real Estate.
In 1982, Ms. Gruen became the first woman elected to the Urban Land Institute's Board of Trustees. She served on the Board of Trustees until 1997. In 1997, Ms. Gruen was designated an honorary member of ULI. For five years, she was co-chairman of the ULI's Low- and Moderate-Income Housing Task Force. In addition to influencing national and local policy, the Task Force sponsored research on the impact of growth management and organized community panels to help resolve local housing, economic development, and neighborhood revitalization issues.
Ms. Gruen was Chair of the State of California Transportation Commission Airspace Advisory Committee from January, 2002 through May, 2005. The AAC 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, she was instrumental in encouraging the Division of Right-of-Way to prepare a 5-year Airspace Business Plan with built-in criteria to measure success. This was a first for the State of California Department of Transportation. In September, 2005 she was appointed to the CTC Real Estate Advisory Panel for a four-year term.
Ms. Gruen served on the Policy Advisory Board of the Roy P. Drachman Institute for Land and Regional Development Studies at the University of Arizona, Tucson. Ms. Gruen has served on the faculties of the University of Cincinnati and the University of Kentucky at Covington. She has lectured on retail demand analysis, the use of survey research for real estate market analysis, and the development entitlement process at the University of California at Berkeley Graduate School of Business and School of Architecture. Ms. Gruen is a member of and past president (1984) of the Western Regional Science Association.
Ms. Gruen is past president (1995-1996) of Womens' Forum West, the Bay Region affiliate of the International Womens' Forum. The forum fosters association among preeminent women leaders throughout the world. She is also a member of Lambda Alpha, an honorary land economics society, and Commercial Real Estate Women (CREW). Ms. Gruen is a frequent speaker at real estate groups and is cited in the January 1993 cover story of the national real estate publication Forum as one of the country's 30 leading women in commercial real estate.
Ms. Gruen received her B.A. with high honors at the University of Cincinnati, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. She also earned an M.A. degree, awarded jointly by the Departments of Psychology and Sociology at the University of Cincinnati, and has attended the University of California at Berkeley for post-graduate studies.
