Ana M. Perez
Senior Vice President/Asset Management
Catellus Development Corp.
Claim to Fame: Heads property management of Catellus’ 21 million-square-foot portfolio.
Ana Perez has a secret she’s ready to spill: Cubans were involved in Watergate.
To be specific, her father, a Cuban real estate developer, built the Watergate apartment complex and hotel in Washington, D.C.
“I always thought I would be a developer, like my dad,” Perez said. “Once I got my master’s, I went to work for Prudential Real Estate Investors in a rotation where I got to work in a lot of different capacities. It was a good place to learn everything.”
Perez earned her bachelor’s degree in economics at UCLA and her MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
During her 11 years at Prudential, she headed the property sales program for five years in Southern California and Arizona. In 1993, she won the “Apartment Community of the Year” award from the Apartment Association of Orange County for the improvements she oversaw at the Vista Del Lago complex in Costa Mesa.
In addition, she repositioned the Grand Central Business Centre in Glendale, a 2 million-square-foot industrial park. The buildings on the site were converted from manufacturing to office and research-and-development space.
Almost four years ago she joined Catellus. Now Perez oversees the management and development services at the firm’s project at Los Angeles’ Union Station. A just-opened 500,000-square-foot building is the new headquarters for the Metropolitan Water District. She also handled the agreement to open a TRAXX Restaurant at the station.
Ann Donahue
