Coro Exec Patti Pearlberg, 62, Dies From Cancer

Patti Pearlberg was a vibrant giver of her time and energy, even until the very end.

She was heavily involved with the Atlanta chapter of Commercial Real Estate Women and the International Council of Shopping Centers. She gave her time to the Council for Quality Growth and the Urban Land Institute.

Pearlberg volunteered with the Cobb Landmarks and Historical Society and the Woodruff Arts Center, and was a past chair of the Georgia Ballet. And Pearlberg especially devoted volunteering time to the Susan G. Komen Foundation.

During all of these civic and volunteering activities, Pearlberg also battled cancer.

“That's one of the most amazing things about Patti. It's one of those cliched things: She had cancer. But cancer did not have her,” Bridge Investment Group Managing Director Tina Renee McCall said. McCall is the current president of CREW Atlanta, and often collaborated with Pearlberg at the organization.

Pearlberg died Aug. 23 after a lengthy battle with cancer, surrounded by her family at her home in historic Downtown Marietta.

Pearlberg was a fixture in the Atlanta commercial real estate community in a career that spanned more than 30 years. She was chief operating officer of Coro Realty at the time of her death.

“She was always busy. She was never going to not be busy,” Coro Realty Advisors Managing Director John Lundeen said. Lundeen had worked with Pearlberg for the better part of 20 years.

“She'd been struggling with [cancer]. But I might add she worked through it almost to the very end. We were able to call her and ask her questions about properties in the last month,” he said.

While Pearlberg initially majored in fashion merchandising and marketing, she told Bisnow in 2014 when she was honored as one of the city's Power Women that her path diverted rather quickly to commercial real estate, first with the storied apartment developer Post Properties in the mid-1980s then to Trammell Crow and Branch and Associates.

Pearlberg also received both her MBA and J.D. while working full time and being a single mother. She told Bisnow that changed her career.

“Going back to school as a single mother to earn my MBA and J.D. while working full time was certainly a great achievement I am very proud of, yet grateful for the doors it opened for me, including making partner here at Coro,” she said.

Parking Company of America Executive Vice President Susana Chavez had known Pearlberg for seven years, since her company first did business with Coro.

“Patti was a tough, but fair negotiator. You could tell that she really was a player with her company,” Chavez said.

Volunteering at CREW together, Chavez said she saw a side of Pearlberg that refused to be tamped down by her illness.

“All the time that I knew her, she had cancer. Or at least was sick. I would ask her occasionally how she was doing. She would always say, 'Susana, I feel great. The doctors tell me I'm not doing well, but I feel great,'” Chavez said. “She was living life fully. She never complained. Never slowing down.”

McCall said Pearlberg was a fashion nut, and loved haute couture. She even named her two Havanese dogs after fashion icons: Manolo Blahnik and Oscar de la Renta. That love for fashion married itself to traveling as well, McCall said.

“You see Patti, and she's always very put together, very business. And she's sitting there talking about her Vespa [scooter] and, you know, her cool helmet. And it was pink,” she said. “She's got this gigantic heart. She's super-adventurous. She loved traveling. She was always looking for something good and fun.”

Lundeen recalled one of the last conversations he had with Pearlberg before her death, a reflection on their partnership together at Coro over the years.

“That was one of the things she said to me at the very end. That we've been great partners over many, many years,” he said. “We'll all miss her. She was a very special person. All we can do is honor her life and celebrate it.”