Marian K. Penny
Executive Administrator
Vermont Village Community Development Corp.
Claim to Fame: Inner-city redevelopment
As executive administrator of the Vermont Village Community Development Corp., Marian K. Penny is helping spearhead $30 million in new projects along Vermont Avenue between Florence Avenue and Manchester Boulevard.
After more than 14 years in commercial real estate, she took the job at the non-profit organization last April as a way to contribute to the community.
“In business, you’re working for the dollar, and in the non-profit world you’re still working to get the business and the tenants,” she says. “But you also are working to effect change in people’s lives, so you want to make the right decisions on tenant choices.”
Before joining the Vermont Village CDC, Penny was deputy director of real estate at Comprehensive Asset Management Inc., where she handled a portfolio of 500,000 square feet of commercial and mixed-use space valued at $50 million. Since 1993, she has handled 48 lease transactions valued at more than $5 million.
She got her first taste of urban development while acting as a broker for both sides in the leasing of 12,164 square feet of space for the L.A, Urban League’s Ron Brown Development Center.
After that she helped Athlete’s Foot find space in Compton for its first inner-city store in 1998. The deal was valued at $500,000.
Penny was born in St. Louis and graduated from St. Louis University in 1981 before moving to Kansas City, when her husband took a marketing job with IBM.
She was dabbling in radio as a program director in Kansas City, when she began to make the change to real estate. “I wanted to be in business, but radio wasn’t my forte,” she said. “I was looking for more of a multi-faceted profession.”
After getting her broker’s license, she resold 33 foreclosed homes in one month while working for the Department of Housing and Urban Development. When she and her husband moved to Los Angeles three years later, she had to reapply for her license and continued working as an independent broker, moving into the commercial sector.
Penny even worked from 5 p.m. to 1 a.m. as a real estate secretary for Lillick & McHose (before its merger with Pillsbury Madison and Sutro) to learn more about commercial leasing. “I can’t believe I did that, but I was hungry to learn,” she said.
Colleagues said such determination is typical for Penny.
“She grabs the opportunity and doesn’t let go,” said Richard McNish, a business development specialist who works at the Economic Resources Corp. and currently is working with Penny in the relocation of 190 businesses affected by the redevelopment of Santa Barbara Plaza Center. “She knows we’re not usually looking for just any businesses, but the right ones to contribute to the whole of a community.”
Nola L. Sarkisian
