The company is assigning top staffers to a special team thatwill work toward acquisitions, cultivate equity partners and seekout strategic properties that are either completed or partiallybuilt. The move is expected to help strengthen its strategicposition by balancing its revenue platform and building itsportfolio through acquisition and development.

"We are in a capital-constrained market on the developmentfront, both from an equity and debt perspective, and expect that tobe the case through 2010," says Jerry Durkin, CEO of Wood Partners."Instead of letting our top development talent sit on thesidelines, we're putting them at the forefront of acquiring newassets, which is where equity wants to be in this market."

Wood Partners, a leading multifamily developer on a nationalscale, will remain active in that arena and has secured equity forfour new projects scheduled to start in the fourth quarter. It nowseeks debt capital for those developments, located in Atlanta,Boston, Denver and Oakland, CA.