Crescent Communities Doubles Down on the Sun Belt

Betting on the long-term strength of the Sun Belt, Crescent Communities has broadened the roles of several senior multifamily leaders. The leadership changes come as the developer balances near-term market challenges with the future opportunities created by declining apartment starts, continued population growth, and emerging land opportunities.

“We continue to believe the long-term demographic and economic fundamentals across the Sun Belt are compelling, but we also recognize that the opportunity set will vary considerably by market and submarket,” says Ben Collins, president of multifamily. “Over the next three to five years, we think some of the best opportunities will emerge in locations where population and employment growth remain strong, barriers to entry are meaningful, and new supply begins to moderate.”

Collins says the leadership changes are about positioning the developer to be more focused and more effective within that future environment.

Leadership changes include:

Michael Tubridy, based in Charlotte, North Carolina, has been promoted to senior vice president, multifamily product and experience. He is providing platform-wide leadership to the delivery of excellence in product vision and resident experience. He has been at Crescent Communities since 2013 and has led the entitlement and development of 21 multifamily and mixed-use communities comprising over 7,000 units in the Southeast; Building on his experience in Georgia, managing director Eric Liebendorfer, who joined Crescent Communities in 2014, will expand his responsibilities to include Florida. He will now oversee development across key growth markets in the state, including Jacksonville, Orlando, and Tampa; Managing director Marcy Phillips will expand her responsibilities across Texas, building on her leadership of the Central Texas platform. She joined Crescent Communities last year and will focus on Austin, Dallas, and Houston; Washington, D.C.-based managing director Brandon Wright will expand his responsibilities to head up the Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, market in addition to the greater D.C.-Maryland-Virginia region; and Charlotte-based Simcha Ward joined Crescent Communities in 2022 as director of development. Ward will serve as managing director for Nashville, Tennessee, and Charlotte, to expand his responsibilities across those core markets. These leadership changes come as the developer is seeing continued momentum across many of these markets for both its NOVEL multifamily and HARMON build-to-rent (BTR) brands.

For example, Crescent Communities recently broke ground on NOVEL Richland Creek, a 277-unit mixed-use community in West Nashville, and HARMON West Meade, a 173-unit BTR community nearby. HARMON Ashton Oaks is under construction in Tampa’s Wesley Chapel suburb, and the developer recently opened NOVEL River District, its first multifamily community within it 1,200-acre master plan The River District in Charlotte.

“Eric, Marcy, Brandon, and Simcha each have deep development experience and strong local relationships, while also having the ability to look across a broader geography and allocate their time and resources toward the best opportunities. At the same time, Michael’s expanded national role allows us to bring greater consistency and intentionality to our product and resident experience across the NOVEL platform,” Collins shares. “We don’t believe every market will move at the same pace. Our structure gives us the ability to remain patient and disciplined while moving decisively when the right opportunities emerge.”

He adds the leadership realignment is designed to help the company navigate an uneven market while positioning it for the next development cycle. With an eye on today’s conditions as well as the fundamentals over a lifetime of a development, its investment decisions are market- and submarket-specific.

According to Collins, the team looks closely at job and household growth, barriers to new supply, basis relative to replacement cost, competition, capital availability, and whether the developer can create a differentiated community that renters will choose.

“Broadening these leaders’ responsibilities actually reinforces that discipline. It allows experienced leaders to evaluate opportunities across multiple markets rather than feeling compelled to transact within a single geography,” he shares. “Our objective isn’t simply to grow our pipeline; it’s to concentrate our capital and resources around the opportunities where we have the greatest conviction.”

Collins says he is cognizant of the challenges still facing developers today but is increasingly optimistic about the environment heading into 2027.

Capital continues to remain one of the biggest challenges. While he says debt and equity are both available, the bar for new development is higher than it was a few years ago with limited rent growth, higher financing costs, and investors seeking more compelling risk-adjusted returns. In addition, the operating environment in markets with significant new supply has made underwriting a new development challenging. “That combination puts a premium on basis, execution, and patience,” he notes.

According to Collins, this environment favors experienced developers with strong local teams, longstanding capital relationships, and the ability to be selective.

“We don’t need to chase activity for activity’s sake,” he says. “Our focus is on finding the relatively small number of opportunities where the location, basis, product, and capital structure come together in a way that we believe can produce compelling long-term results.”

He also notes that opportunities are starting to emerge on the land side, and, for experienced developers with the local market knowledge and capital, that can create a window to build the next generation of communities.

“I think the key is not trying to call the exact bottom of the cycle. A multifamily community we start in 2027 will deliver into a very different supply environment than the one we’re experiencing today,” Collins says. “Our job is to identify the locations where we have conviction in that future demand, maintain discipline around basis and returns, and be prepared to act when those pieces align.”

Crescent Communities Doubles Down on the Sun Belt

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