At Lane, Bell becomes Southeast regional partner and is also expected to lead the company's growth across the country, says Lane CEO Bill Donges. "John is the perfect person to help lead Lane Co.'s aggressive growth throughout the Southeast," Donges says.

Bell tells GlobeSt.com he decided to join Lane because "it is a very entrepreneurial-oriented company." He says "that is what attracted me to Lane." Although Lane has been known primarily as a multifamily developer, the company is now looking at a mix of development categories, Bell says. "We are beginning to see more vertical mixed-use projects [planned for metro Atlanta] and you have to be nimble to be a player in that market," he tells GlobeSt.com. "I believe Lane has the flexibility to play in all of the new markets."

Lane and its subsidiaries have made numerous staff changes this year alone to prepare itself for a new growth surge, as GlobeSt.com previously reported. At Lane Investment & Development, Loretta Easton was promoted to executive vice president; Joel Brockmann advanced to vice president of development; Debbie Jackson was promoted to vice president of finance and disposition; and former Lane Investment president Marc Pollack became an outside consultant for the firm.

At Lane Management LLC, Bob Keator was named vice president of marketing. Four regional operating centers were established. Lisa Robinson was hired as the regional vice president of Florida. Kim Lee was promoted to regional vice president for the Carolinas. Jim Collins and Melanie Gersper were hired as regional vice president for the Georgia operations centers. Scott Templeton was promoted to vice president of business services. Drew Goldman was hired as vice president of business development.

Alan Dean at Trammell Crow Residential couldn't be reached to learn what effect Bell's leaving would have on his office and who might be Bell's replacement. At Crow, Bell's local development activities included 1,400 for-sale residential units with an estimated development cost of about $500 million. He also was a vice president of Atlanta development for AMLI Residential Inc. for four years before joining Crow.