James J. Curtis III

July 13, 1953 – June 30, 2019

James J. Curtis III passed on June 30, 2019. Known to everyone except his family as “Curtis,” he was the oldest of six children and grew up in the Chicago suburbs where he learned his refreshingly direct and unpretentious style.

Evidencing his life-long capacity for hard work, Curtis worked summers in a steel mill while he obtained his BS from Marquette University. After Marquette, he earned an MS in Real Estate and Urban Land Economics from the University of Wisconsin’s prestigious school of Business. Moving to San Francisco in the late seventies, he was a wunderkind with Bank of America’s real estate investment group, purchasing and selling commercial properties across the country on its behalf. Vaulting from that success, in 1980 he co-founded Bristol Group, one of the nation’s top real estate investment and development firms. Among his company’s many award-winning projects, Curtis was most proud of his redevelopment of six square blocks in downtown Los Angeles, converting the former Unocal Oil headquarters into Los Angeles Center Studios, a twenty acre major movie and television studio and entertainment campus; and his instrumental involvement in converting a dilapidated neighborhood in Washington DC to the now thriving NOMA district. Far more than a businessman, Curtis gave back to his community, his colleges and his industry in many ways, being incredibly generous with not only his money but his time. He took two years away from running Bristol Group to chair (on an unpaid basis) the Urban Land Foundation, a real estate non-profit institution dedicated to improving the built environment through education. He was also a Trustee and Foundation Governor of the Urban Land Institute (ULI) and a lifetime member of the University of Wisconsin Graaskamp Center for Real Estate, which awarded him a Lifetime Achievement Award. He also received the Counselors of Real Estate Landauer/ White Lifetime Achievement Award.

Intensely passionate about every aspect of his life, Curtis loved his real estate projects, ULI, his other industry, charitable and community involvements, art collecting, and sports but, most of all, he loved his family and many friends. He is survived by his wife, Melodie Duke, his parents, Clare Curtis and Jim Curtis, his sisters, Kelly Gibbel, Mary Mahoney and Anne Metzger, his brothers, Rob and Tom Curtis, and 18 nephews and nieces.

Curtis will be missed by one and all.

Memorial Services are pending and contributions in his honor may be made to St. Anthony’s Foundation/ www.stanthonysf.org