Richard C. Dunn

April 15, 2011

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Richard C. ("Dick") Dunn, age 84, scion of a distinguished 3-generation Los Angeles commercial real estate brokerage dynasty encompassing the Charles Dunn Company and Dunn Property Group, died Friday, April 15 at 7:00 AM at Huntington Hospital, Pasadena, from an inoperable brain hemorrhage.

At the time of his death, Dunn was managing the Dunn family real estate portfolio and still practicing brokerage with his brother Joe and nephew Mike Dunn. Dunn's 62 year career in the Los Angeles area was witness to the spectacular boom and development of the Southern California's commercial real estate market in the late 20th & early 21st Centuries and Dunn played a significant leadership role in the assembly, sale and/or lease of some of the area.s most signature commercial properties. While acknowledging the complex changes to the brokerage industry and the vagaries of the economic climate over the past half century, the veteran real estate broker would wryly describe the brokerage business as "Still just dirt, people and money".

"We are terribly saddened by this unexpected loss," says Mike Dunn, president of Dunn Property Group. "Dick's experience, counsel and presence were inspirational to all of us, along with so many in the industry."

Dunn was widely regarded by the industry as the dean of the commercial real estate brokerage field. Highlights of Dunn's remarkable Southern California commercial brokerage career include:

  • NBC's purchase of 50 acres in Burbank;
  • The sale of Warner Gateway, a 239,000-square-foot office complex in the west San Fernando Valley;
  • Brokering the land acquisition and obtaining the leasing and management contract for the development of the 415,000-square-foot 500 North Brand Building in Glendale, at the time the city's largest and most successful "spec" office building;
  • Assembling the land for the Signal Oil & Gas high-rise at Wilshire and the Harbor Freeway and brokering the lease to Maguire Partners and Pacific Telephone;
  • The sale of 10 acres of assembled parcels fronting the Harbor Freeway at Temple Street to Bank of America's regional computer center;
  • Leasing 140,000 square feet in the 700 South Flower Building to a law firm and a NYSE brokerage for its L.A. headquarters;
  • A triple play involving the Remington Rand regional headquarters at 2601 Wilshire Boulevard: first a sale and leaseback to RemRand, then subsequent sales to Mission Insurance and Southwest Administrators;
  • A $63 million sale of the HSBC bank credit facility in Salinas, CA;

Dunn also played a major role in the expansion plans of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, beginning in the late 1940's when Archbishop James Francis McIntyre assigned them the task of buying property for new parishes in outlying areas and the acquisition of the land for the new St. Basil's Catholic Church on Wilshire Blvd., among other properties.

Over the next five decades, Dunn also brokered nearly 300 transactions for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the original site purchase or property additions to 75 parishes, 20 high schools, 12 hospitals (including St. John's, Queen of Angeles and St Joseph's) and over 20 related Catholic religious institutions (including Loyola Law School). In 2009, Dunn orchestrated the $31 million sale and leaseback of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles headquarters, a 13 story office building at 3424 Wilshire Blvd. which Dunn had previously arranged as a gift from Thrifty Payless to the Archdiocese.

In April 2006, Dunn moved back to the 1200 Wilshire Building that he and his brother had developed in the '70s, joining forces with Dunn Property Group, a commercial real estate brokerage firm. The 100,000-square-foot office building was developed by the Dunn family in the 1970s - a building that sits just one-and-a-half blocks east of the 1339 Wilshire Blvd. residence that housed the original Charles Dunn Company in 1949. Other area commercial properties Dunn developed include 170 Fair Oaks, Pasadena, CA and 500 N. Brand, Glendale, CA.

A former trustee of Loyola Marymount University and a regent of Loyola High School, Dunn was active in a number of local foundations and Catholic high schools and charities including Fritz Burns, Weingart and Hospitaller Foundations, St. John of God Care Center, Little Sisters of the Poor and Immaculate Heart High School.