DECEMBER 1-7,2000 PHILADELPHIA BUSINESS JOURNAL
Jacqueline Buhn connects 'urban' and 'life'
As a principal at Renaissance Properties and resident of Fitler Square, she puts her faith in the city

MELANIE D. GOLDMAN
SPECIAL TO THE BUSINESS JOURNAL

Get Jacqueline Buhn talking about real estate and it won't take be long before she's talking about schools. A principal at Renaissance Properties, a real estate development and manage-ment firm in Center City, Buhn says there's not many degrees of separation between the real estate industry and the public school system.

Just look at what free preschool in Philadelphia would do," said Buhn, one of the Philadelphia Business Journal's 25 Women of Distinction this year. "It would certainly make a difference in the real estate market downtown."

She said more families would stay in the city if the school system had more to offer. "There would be people living and working downtown. They'd need offices and houses, people could work more productively, kids would go to school better prepared, which means they'd be better educated and better employees, and that would mean fewer people in our jails. It clearly has a significant im-pact in my business. Good schools would mean a lot to urban real estate. Great schools would mean even more."
For her part, Buhn has meant a lot to urban real estate in Philadelphia, where 11-year-old Renaissance has earned a reputation for developing car-rier hotels over the last few years. Buhn said the carrier hotel is a great use for old buildings that didn't previ-ously have profitable use. Through her work, she has become known locally as the telecom-carrier hotel guru and has been asked to work in telecom develop-ment both regionally and nationally.

Renaissance's biggest current projects include the management of 440 N. Broad St., the former Inquirer printing press building, and the reinvestment and re-marketing strategy for 833 Chestnut St., where Buhn has increased occupancy from 27 percent to 60 percent, with rental rates up by 25 percent.
The 440 N. Broad site, which was va-cant, is being redeveloped into a tele-com carrier hotel and data center by The Archon Group, a Goldman Sachs subsidiary. The 833 Chestnut project, said Buhn, is important to the redevel-opment on East Chestnut. Its historic renovation has included restoring the facade and installing a new gold- painted cast iron storefront, a replica of the original. The building is now home to several high-tech and medical tenants in addition to the telecom ten-ants, which bring new high-paying jobs and activity to Chestnut Street.

Buhn is the president of Commercial Real Estate Women (CREW) of Philadelphia, which she said has been a great asset to her and the community of women in real estate. "CREW has helped women hone their skills and networking," she said. "We give each other job leads just like the old boys' network. It?s an industry that has been dominated by men, but I see it changing."

She is also the secretary of the Coalition for Com-mercial Real Estate Agen-cies and a member of the Forum of Executive Woman. She speaks regu-larly on real estate issues at the University of Pennsylvania. Through CREW and the Yale Club, Buhn has also been active with Endow-A-Home and Youth Services, two regional agen-cies that serve local at-risk youth and families. She has participated in numerous neighborhood organizations, including Friends of Schuylkill River
Park, Schuylkill Park Community Gar-den, Town Watch, Center City Resi-dents Association Zoning Review Board, Greenfield and J.R. Masterman School Home-School Association and Filter Square Improvement Associa-tion.

"Some people know exactly what they want to do," she said. "At 49, I ought to be old enough to know what I want be when I grow up, and I don't. I think that's OK, because with the market changing so much, you have to be able to adapt."

Buhn hopes to one day work on turning abound the city's schools so to serve kids better and attract families, rather than driving them away which she said is the case today.

But Buhn's abiding interest is cities and making them great places live. Working with her Renaissance partners, co-founders Stan Taraila and Jon Sutton, Buhn passionate about the revitalization of downtown. She wants to help make cities livable, which, she said, "means that we'll all be more sane environmentally. I live in the city, have a garden on the river where grow all our family vegetables, we have parks nearby, I walk to work."

"We're a family of four with one car It's really idyllic. I'd like to see other families

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