Simpson Housing L.P. (No. 31)

In units, this Denver-based apartment builder is top dog in the rental sector, with 6,181 completions in 2001. On revenue, Simpson ranks third among rental Giants, behind kingpins Lincoln Property and JPI, and ahead of Spanos and Trammell Crow.

With $654.7 million in value of housing produced, Simpson climbs to No. 31 on the current overall list, up from 52 last year and 67 in 2000. While that looks like a phenomenal growth curve, the company is a little more conservative than the numbers indicate.

“The reason for our big jump in units is the purchase of KB Home’s multihousing division in August 2000,” explains Steve Bair, who runs Simpson’s construction subsidiary, Great West Contractors. “They do tax-credit apartments out of offices in Long Beach, California. That just about doubled our closings, especially in 2001.” That low-income, assisted rental housing producer is now known as Simpson Housing Solutions.

“Our market-rate unit volume moved up a little,” Bair says. “But we are now building a lot of very high-end apartments in mixed-use developments on infill sites in major urban areas like San Diego, Seattle and Yonkers, New York. That stuff takes a lot longer to get approved and to build, so our output in future years may drop, but the rents we get in that niche run from $1.40 a square foot in Seattle to $1.74 a foot in San Diego. And the Yonkers project is projecting $2.25 a foot. We think it’s worth the time and risk to develop downtown.”