{"id":1004034466,"date":"2011-11-29T09:27:40","date_gmt":"2011-11-29T17:27:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.commercialsearch.com\/news\/?p=1004034466"},"modified":"2025-02-25T00:03:10","modified_gmt":"2025-02-25T08:03:10","slug":"impactful-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.commercialsearch.com\/news\/impactful-women\/","title":{"rendered":"Impactful Women"},"content":{"rendered":"

November 29, 2011<\/strong>
\nBy Suzann D. Silverman, Editor-in-Chief<\/em><\/p>\n

This year during the 2011 Convention & Marketplace, the Commercial Real Estate Women Network honored five women for extraordinary leadership contributions to the industry. Representing a variety of disciplines, these winners of the Impact Awards\u2014and the top honor, the Achievement of Excellence Award\u2014have orchestrated complex deals as pioneers, negotiators and mediators, while at the same time supporting colleagues and mentoring future leaders. Following is a video featuring their insights into leadership and business success, as well as an extended version of the write-ups on their experiences that first appeared in the November 2011<\/a> issue of Commercial Property Executive. For more on the awards themselves, log on to crewnetwork.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n

CPE TV Features: Interviews with the Award Winners<\/a><\/p>\n


\nAchievement of Excellence Award\/<\/span><\/strong>Entrepreneurial Spirit Award<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Pamela Bundy Foster\"\"<\/a>
\n<\/strong>President & CEO
\nBundy Development Corp.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pamela Bundy Foster did not set out to become a real estate developer, let alone partner on major mixed-use projects throughout Washington, D.C. But long before she founded her development company, she knew she never wanted to work for someone else.<\/p>\n

Initially planning to become a psychologist, Foster realized it was not for her while doing doctoral work. The Hustle, Va., native instead went to work for 7-Eleven and then Pepsico as a district manager before realizing she had to take yet another direction.<\/p>\n

Jobless but financially sound, having recently reorganized her priorities, she took a sales class and discovered real estate. \u201cI knew I didn\u2019t want real estate sales,\u201d she said, so she became an appraiser. A client group with a mid-\u201990s approach to the Washington market gave her the idea of buying homes inexpensively, then building or renovating and selling them. Between 1995 and 1999, she averaged 10 to 12 houses per year, developing a blueprint for her company and incorporating as Pamela Bundy & Associates in 1996. She did not know much about development at the outset, but growing up in the lumber business had given her a sense of it and she hired people to fill the gaps in her own expertise. \u201cI just wasn\u2019t scared,\u201d she said. \u201cI was willing to learn the hard way, willing to get people to train me, to learn on the job.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 1999, she landed her first big deal, assembling a block of properties in Washington\u2019s emerging Logan Circle submarket to develop The Castle, a $3.1 million, 13,000-square-foot condominium property, using ingenuity to win an audience with a tough property owner and distinguish herself. Bundy followed that project the next year with a second Logan Circle project, The Icon, a $5.2 million property that totaled 26,000 square feet. \u201cI\u2019m willing to explore neighborhoods other people wouldn\u2019t,\u201d she explained, naming NoMa as another early focus.<\/p>\n

Those projects led to bigger deals, as developers like Lowe Enterprises, The JBG Cos. and Hines began inviting her to bring her condominium expertise to their mixed-use projects. Foster, however, had other plans. Though developers often wanted her to partner only on the condo portion of a project, \u201cmy business instincts tell me never to do that,\u201d she declared. Instead, she insisted on a pari passu <\/em>partnership, teaming with Hines on the $950 million CityCenterDC and Lowe Enterprises on the $220 million City Vista project. Another recent win: a five-year indefinite delivery\/indefinite quantity construction management contract for the District of Columbia.<\/p>\n