Our Mission Statement
At Woodlands we believe that we serve five distinct clients:
- The Investor – We work to serve our investors by building a product on time and under budget that earns a strong and timely return on investment.
- The Resident – We serve our residents by building quality homes in attractive locations that will be excellent places to live for years to come.
- The Communities in which we build – We serve our communities by creating homes that are an enhancement to the community, and are great places to live for their inhabitants.
- Woodlands associates – We serve our associates by guaranteeing an excellent, collegial, and profitable working environment, thereby attracting the most talented associates.
- The Buyer – We serve the future owners of our developments with high quality, well located properties.
During the Great Recession that began in 2008, the Multifamily industry was particularly hard hit. Many of the traditional renter demographics were the very same demographics that lost their income during the recession. As a result, multifamily developers were forced to pursue the only renters that still had reliable income: young urban professionals.
As the economy began to stabilize, blue-collar Americans began getting back to work and millennials began to move out of their parents’ homes. While these new renters had income, it was not sufficient to rent apartments in the urban core. Most developers were busy delivering apartments focused on one of the smallest rental demographics.
While the trend toward suburban and small-town living was originally driven by blue collar job growth, it is now exacerbated by growing crime, poor services, traffic congestion, and other concerns of daily city life. Add to this that remote working and the availability to access services and entertainment through broadband blunt the advantages formerly proffered by big-city living. Even so, there are few developers pursuing the workforce housing and town square living strategies.
Woodlands Residential plans to take advantage of the pent-up demand in these two underserved markets.
Our History
Woodlands residential is set to become one of the great attainable housing developers in the Atlanta Metro Area. We’d be happy to share our perspectives on Atlanta as a growing city. We have been working in the Atlanta area for years, and the market has always been great. The combination of a highly educated workforce, excellent infrastructure, fantastic amenities, beautiful weather, and a booming economy have made Atlanta a destination for businesses and people from around the country.
Currently, Atlanta has had an excellent recovery from the pandemic with 380,000 jobs lost from February to April 2020, but 310,000 jobs added back from May 2020 to July 2021. Meanwhile, Atlanta area income growth and population growth are well above national averages. Astonishingly, year over year rent growth in Atlanta was 18.3%, nearly double the national average of 9.5%. At Woodlands, we invite our investors to explore and invest in this excellent market alongside us.
To learn more about our history, view our detailed timeline here.
Meet the Founders
Leonard Wood, Sr.
Founder
Leonard W. Wood, a former NMHC Chairman, is the founder of Atlanta-based Wood Partners , which he started in 1998. He served as its Managing Principal until he retired in 2007. During his tenure, he built the company into one of the leading apartment developers, starting approximately 32,400 multifamily units worth $4.25 billion. Prior to Wood Partners, he served as a Partner for Trammell Crow, where he was in charge of the Southeast Region, Texas, the Midwest, and Southwest Regions. He also founded the Wood Center for Real Estate Studies at the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School. Throughout his entire career, he has seen 58 projects, a total of 19,554 units, and over $1.7 Billion in total budget. Now Leonard is actively involved in Woodlands Apartment Communities, and in numerous charities that focus on education, as well as serving on the boards of various educational institutions.
Kevin J. Wood
Managing Director
Kevin J Wood is co-founder and serves as managing director of Woodlands Apartment Communities since its founding in August of 2021. He is responsible for the overall management of the day-to-day operations of the company as well as sourcing new land acquisition opportunities, managing the development process, and
preparation, maintenance, and organization of project documents, budgets, financial models, schedules, and reports.
Kevin is founding Woodlands Apartment Communities after Serving as Vice President of Development with Vista Realty Partners. Prior to that, he was a Project Manager with Gables Residential, a large national multi-family residential owner, operator, and developer where he was focused on the execution of high-profile residential multi-family developments. Prior to that, Kevin worked as a Project Manager for the Paxis Group, a Property Manager for Greystar, and as a financial analyst for multi-family investments at CBRE. Kevin Served as a United States Army officer from 2003 to 2008.
Kevin holds a bachelors degree in economics from Auburn University and a Masters in Business Administration from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.