One Of The Biggest U.S. Developers Is Done With The West Coast
Wood Partners is shuttering its West Coast operations after it finishes up the projects already underway.
The Atlanta-based firm is the fourth-largest apartment developer in the country, with more than 5,000 units started last year, according to the National Multifamily Housing Council.
It plans to kick off construction of another 5,000 units this year, but none of the upcoming projects will be in California, Oregon or Washington, Wood Partners CEO Joe Keough confirmed to Bisnow in a statement. Multifamily Dive first reported Wood's West Coast retreat.
“We are deeply grateful for the contributions of our amazing West Coast employees and we will support them through this strategic transition,” Keough said in a statement. “We remain fully committed to the execution of the construction, lease-up and stabilization of our projects in these impacted markets while continuing to be good fiduciaries for our capital partners.”
The developer didn’t provide an explanation for the decision. It is unclear how many workers have been laid off or are still on staff. Layoffs hadn't appeared in the state’s public records of Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notifications by Friday morning, although there were online reports that some layoffs happened earlier this week.
Wood Partners has recently opened properties in Texas and Florida, as well as entered the Rhode Island and New Hampshire markets in June, according to the developer’s website. The majority of its California updates, however, were released between 2018 and 2021. The developer has not released news about California projects on its website since November 2021.
California has been a notoriously difficult place to build housing over the last decade. The annual average has hit around 80,000 new homes each year during that period, which is below the 180,000 new homes that need to be delivered annually in order to meet the state’s housing needs, per Multifamily Dive.
CORRECTION, JULY 26, 2024, 6 P.M. ET: A previous version of this story referenced an unverified post on social media platform X alleging that Wood Partners had already terminated employees in California.This story has been updated to reflect the timing of layoffs is unclear.
