Wood Partners (No. 58)

A new entry on PB’s GIANTS list, this Marietta, Ga.-based apartment builder checks in at No. 58 after beginning operations in 1998 as a spinoff from Trammell Crow Residential, the apartment building behemoth. “We were the Atlanta/Charlotte operation for TCR until Leonard Wood retired and formed his own organization,” explains Mike Roche, a Wood Partners director. The firm’s first two projects, in the Atlanta suburbs, came on-stream in June 1999.

Since then, Wood has formed two divisions. WP-South has operations in Georgia, Florida and Texas. WP-East, with offices in Charlotte, operates in North Carolina and Washington, D.C. With 2001 production of 3,013 housing units valued at more than $281 million, Wood is already playing with the big boys in the apartment sector. Asked to project 2002 production, Roche says, “We’ll bring on two projects totaling about 1,000 units in Atlanta, two each in north and south Florida at 500 units per project, one in Dallas for about 500, and one in Houston of similar size.”

With operations in Charlotte, Raleigh, N.C., and Washington also contributing completions, it looks like Wood will be a player in the apartment sector for some time to come. At 55, Leonard Wood is retired from Trammell Crow, but he doesn’t look ready for a rocking chair.