We caught up with Ridgeline Property Group's Greg Thurman, Michael Gray, and Rose Leypoldt, who'd left Panattoni last year. After months of silence, Mike and Greg have come forward with their national development company's plans. “We were just at the point in our career where we wanted to go do this on our own,” Greg says. (The start of any good business or Fievel movie.) And the group is already close to securing talent nationwide, with offices opening in Northern and Southern California, Texas, and in the Northeast, leveraging institutional capital clients to pursue a slate of development.

That may include big projects in Metro Atlanta (along with ones in Dallas, Memphis, Pennsylvania, and South Florida). Ridgeline controls 108 acres in Braselton, above, “and we're very close to announcing a bulk distribution piece in South Atlanta,” Mike says. The trio is starting Ridgeline at a time when Atlanta's industrial market has firmed up, with much of the first-gen space finally filled. “There is not a Class-A option above 600k SF. And we think the market's going to continue to strengthen.”