Prominent Silver Spring business leader Bruce Lee dies

Bruce H. Lee, president and CEO of Silver Spring, Maryland-based Lee Development Group, died Dec. 19 after losing a battle with pancreatic cancer, company officials said.

Bruce Lee (Courtesy Lee Development Group)

Lee was 58.

Lee joined Lee Development Group in 1986 and became chief executive of the family-owned business in 2005. Lee Development Group was founded by his grandfather in 1930.

The redevelopment of a former department store to The Fillmore, a world-class performance venue that opened in 2012 across the street from Silver Theater, is one of the high-profile projects Lee oversaw.

LDG’s current projects include the 16-story Elizabeth Square complex, on company-owned land in downtown Silver Spring. Lee worked with Montgomery County and the Housing Opportunities Commission on the project that will deliver new affordable housing to Silver Spring when it opens next year, as well as health facilities and a public aquatic center.

Lee earned an Executive MBA at American University, and was an avid sailor and golfer.



He served as the first president of the Greater Silver Spring Chamber of Commerce in 1993, and was chair of the Silver Spring Urban District Advisory Committee from 1991 to 1993. He also served on the board of directors for EagleBank, and as co-chair of the economic development committee for the Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce.

He was inducted into the Montgomery County Business Hall of Fame in 2018.

Lee is survived by his wife, Sarah; son, Thomas; and sister, Evalyn. Another son, Andrew, died in 2019 after establishing the Driven to Cure, a nonprofit cancer-fighting foundation for rare cancer research.

Jeff Clabaugh

Jeff Clabaugh has spent 20 years covering the Washington region's economy and financial markets for WTOP as part of a partnership with the Washington Business Journal, and officially joined the WTOP newsroom staff in January 2016.

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