Integral Group Elevates Lundy Wilbon To President In International, Modular Pivot

A longtime executive with Atlanta-based Integral Group has been elevated to a leadership role as the developer eyes expanding operations beyond the U.S. borders.

Vicki Lundy Wilbon, who has been with Integral for 26 years and most recently served as president of community development, was earlier this month named president of the real estate division, a new position created to consolidate Integral's community development, property management and commercial real estate efforts under one umbrella.

The move is in preparation for Integral's expansion out from the U.S., with new offices planned in unnamed cities in the Southeast and the West, Lundy Wilbon said. Integral already operates offices in Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Lundy Wilbon said the reorganization of the company is in the early stages and did not disclose any specific new projects or markets that Integral CEO and Chairman Egbert Perry may be targeting.

Integral officials said in a press release Perry would focus “more intently” on diversifying Integral's products and geographical footprint, including international efforts. Integral, which controls more than 100 acres in the city of Atlanta and other urban markets in the U.S. and has a $2B development pipeline, has developed 10,000 residential units throughout its history, including the mixed-income Centennial Place development in the 1990s, which became a national model for the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

“I’ve mapped out a progressive future for the company,” Lundy Wilbon said in an email to Bisnow.

That will include two major announcements in the fourth quarter, she said: an expansion of its national footprint, including the opening of a new regional office supporting a new market for the company, and two senior team members joining the firm to support its growth.

During a phone interview, Lundy Wilbon said Integral was also looking to engage in international development consulting, including assisting in revitalization projects.

“Some of what we're able to take international is what we have done here locally,” she said. “We decided that it's time for us to really break out and broaden our market reach.”

At least one new endeavor by Integral will be into the modular construction arena.

In August, Gov. Brian Kemp announced that Integral was planning to establish a $14M manufacturing facility in Fulton County for its Advanced Modular Structures division, creating 200 new jobs in the process. Integral entered into a joint venture with Diversity Program Advisors and leased 6077 Fulton Industrial Blvd., a 228K SF distribution center that the duo plans to transform into a modular factory. The JV intends to develop modular constructions using repurposed shipping containers into trade show displays, retail stores, offices and affordable housing, Kemp said.

“This new venture will help fill the demand for affordable housing and provide economic development growth in Georgia communities by delivering new options for retail and commercial facilities,” Advanced Modular Structures Chief Operating Officer George Hawthorne said in a press release at the time. The plant is scheduled to open this year. Lundy Wilbon declined to elaborate on the effort.

Integral has a nearly 30-year history in Metro Atlanta. In 1994, with the Summer Olympics bearing down on the region two years into the future, the city and HUD officials agreed to try the Centennial Place experiment. The project would trade an eyesore with something appealing and safer, especially for visitors and Olympic athletes. Integral tore down the blighted Techwood and Clark Howell public housing communities and built the mixed-income development, marrying public housing units with market-rate and affordable units in the same structure, and establishing a charter school for area children.

“We created housing in an environment that was no longer stigmatized as public housing, but in fact was great housing that had some affordability integrated into it,” Perry told Bisnow in 2017. The firm transformed more than a dozen public housing projects in Atlanta.

Integral and then-Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed battled over a contract the developer entered into with the Atlanta Housing Authority to acquire and develop 80 acres of city land into mixed-income projects. In a now-dismissed lawsuit, Reed said Integral received an inappropriate deal to buy the properties well under market values.

The dispute lasted until 2020 when the city and the AHA reached a settlement agreement to allow Integral to move forward on the acquisition.

In March, Integral sold 125 acres of the 165-acre former General Motors plant site in Doraville that it had targeted for a massive $2B mixed-use project to Gray TV and also agreed to sell its Third Rail Studios property at Doraville's Assembly to Gray TV this past summer, the Atlanta Business Chronicle reported.

CORRECTION, SEPT. 13, 5:25 P.M. ET: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated Integral was expanding offices outside of Metro Atlanta for the first time. The developer has offices in Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles and San Francisco. This story has been updated.