January 14, 2020
Baltimore Business Journal
By Melody Simmons
Bozzuto Group’s workforce is poised to exceed 3,000 in the coming year as the 32-year-old company continues an expansion into large U.S. cities.
CEO Toby Bozzuto said Monday the Greenbelt-based company is planning to grow by 420 workers in the coming 12 months with property management and construction jobs in Miami, Boston, Chicago and Philadelphia. The company currently has 2,600 employees.
The hiring boom is in response to the continuing popularity of Class A luxury apartment development that has dominated those cities and Baltimore’s housing market for several years.
Bozzuto said his company has opened offices in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and Miami to focus on that growth in addition to its headquarters off Interstate 95 in Prince George’s County. There’s even a plan to spread west to points like Denver and California in the coming five or so years, he said.
“There’s a propensity in Baltimore for people to think of us as just a Baltimore company,” Bozzuto said, of the game plan for the coming 12 months. “In reality, it’s one of several markets we’re in. We’ve expanded our management company into South Florida and we’re one of the largest Class A managers in the city of Chicago. We have so much more to do.”
Bozzuto, 45, took over the company’s top management about five years ago from his father, Tom, who co-founded Bozzuto Group in 1988. Today, he and his team manage more than 74,671 luxury apartment units in 255 properties. The company reported $2.45 billion in revenue for the Baltimore Business Journal’s List of largest private companies in Greater Baltimore.
The expanding workforce at Bozzuto is part of a growth plan for the company focused on “gateway cities,” described by Bozzuto as large metro areas with a 24-hour lifestyle where data shows growth in a younger workforce. He declined to discuss the company’s profits, citing its private status, but said the margins were high enough to accommodate the growth.
“We need to be successful every year to grow,” he said.
Bozzuto Group currently manages a total of six projects in Miami, 33 in Massachusetts, 17 in Chicago and 27 in New York. The company last year expanded into Boston and in August opened the $70 million, 320-unit Glasshouse at Station Square on Pittsburgh’s Monongahela River waterfront.
Bozzuto was co-developer with prominent city developments Liberty Harbor East and Anthem House. It is also the general contractor for the new student housing project underway at Towson Row and soon will begin work at that $350 million project on its anchor, a 45,000-square-foot Whole Foods market off York Road.