Years ago, when Jaime Lee’s dad needed a name for his new company, he asked his daughter for suggestions. Naturally, at the age of 10 or so, she had one handy: Jameson. “That was my nickname in first grade,” she says of the company that was ultimately named Jamison Services, Inc. “Of course, I was in a completely narcissistic state. I was the oldest and the only girl. Name it after me. We changed the ‘e’ to an ‘i’ to make it sound more corporate and so it didn’t sound like the whiskey.”
Quite a bit of family business has transpired since then. Today Jamison Services, Inc. is one of the largest commercial landlords in Southern California, managing 125 office buildings with a total of 22 million square feet, as well as shopping centers, hotels and golf courses (and almost every office building in Koreatown).
And as Jamison grew, so did its namesake’s reputation in Los Angeles business circles. After double dipping at USC (undergraduate and law school), Lee, now 25, is pursuing double passions in real estate and fashion as president of downtown’s California Market Center (CMC), which Jamison Services acquired in 2005. The hub of West Coast fashion, CMC offers everything from wholesale showrooms to office space and will see a new 40,000-square-foot contemporary floor opening this spring.
When Lee speaks of the CMC, her commitment to its success is evident: “It’s not just about what lines you carry, but how to keep up buildings, how to attract more business downtown,” she says. “On the fashion side, everything is beautiful and fun, but it's also a business, like real estate."
