By Phillip Britt

Tom Bell is president and chief executive officer of Cousins Properties Incorporated (NYSE: CUZ), an Atlanta-based diversified REIT with office, medical office, retail and residential properties, as well as leasing and management services for third-party owners. Bell assumed his current position in January 2002. He was named vice chairman of the board and chairman of the executive committee in 2001.

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AGE: 54 FAMILY: Married, three children EDUCATION: University of Tennessee, New York University FAVORITE SPECTATOR SPORT: Football FAVORITE PARTICIPANT SPORTS: Hunting, for anything that flies. Favorite game are duck, pheasant, quail. Also an avid golfer, with a 10 handicap. FAVORITE SPORTS TEAMS: Atlanta Falcons, Tennessee Volunteers, Atlanta Braves FAVORITE TRAVEL DESTINATION: Tuscany FAVORITE BOOK: "Modern Times: The World from the Twenties to the Nineties," by Paul Johnson FAVORITE MOVIES: "Dances With Wolves," "Gone With the Wind" COMMUNITY ACTIVITIES: YMCA, Woodruff Arts Center Board BUSINESS ACTIVITIES: Board member and executive committee member, U.S. Chamber of Commerce; board of governor and executive committee member, NAREIT, AGL Resources, Credit Suisse Group, Lincoln Financial Group, Regal Entertainment Group. Incoming chairman, Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce.

Cousins Properties, founded by current company Chairman Thomas Cousins, began its business in the Atlanta area in 1958, and became a REIT in 1987. Since its founding, the company has developed more than 20 million square feet of office and more than 12 million square feet of retail space, including seven regional malls. Currently, the company‘s portfolio of office buildings is 85 percent leased. Cousins Properties' medical office buildings are 93 percent leased and its retail centers are 92 percent leased.

Recently, Bell discussed the company's recent developments as well as the outlook for the future.

Portfolio: Portfolio profiled Cousins Properties in 2000. Obviously a lot has changed since then, what would be the Cliff's Notes update on where the company is today?
Bell: The most obvious change is our increased focus on growing our residential and retail businesses, particularly in the last two years. Our residential lot business has increased 400 percent, while we've also had a substantial increase in the retail business, particularly in our Avenue concept. We continue to be involved in the development of office property, though that market has been slow since 2000.

We follow a very simple strategy: We're a diversified developer with multiple product types, driven by a focus on creating shareholder value. Everything we do is aimed at creating value in an asset. If we reach a point where we feel everything has been done to maximize the value of an asset, we look for opportunities to harvest that value. As I said, it's a simple strategy: We look to develop properties, create value, and, at the appropriate time capture that value and reward our shareholders.

Portfolio: Cousins Properties has employed joint ventures with strong corporate partners since 1962. How has that strategy evolved?
Bell: That corporate partnership strategy has worked very well for us over the years, but our company has evolved to where we no longer rely on a few close relationships to drive our business. In Cousins' earlier years, we started these partnerships to provide us with access to capital for development. Now, the company is well capitalized, so we really don't need to do that as much today. I'd say it's no longer a core strategy for us.

Portfolio: Cousins operates in the residential, retail, industrial and office sectors. What are the advantages and the challenges of being a diversified REIT rather than focusing on a single sector of the market?
Bell: Being a diversified development REIT allows us to go wherever the market is strongest at a particular time. Different markets move in different cycles and if one sector is down, another sector is usually up. Being diversified means we can focus on one or more of our product types—retail, residential, industrial or office—depending on where the market is providing the best opportunity. This approach gives us a better chance of continually providing our shareholders with maximum value creation. If we were just an office company, for example, we wouldn't have been able to provide many opportunities for our shareholders in recent times because that sector has been down for a couple of years.

Among the challenges we have as a diversified development REIT is that we have to employ a larger group of development staff than a single-product developers to insure we have people who are comfortable with the different product types. We also must have a strong underwriting capability that understands each of our markets and product types.

Portfolio: What do you see in the near-term and long-term for the different market sectors that Cousins Properties operates? How will the rising interest rate environment affect the company?
Bell: I'll start with residential. I don't think we'll continue to grow our residential business at the same rate as the past few years. Our future growth rate in residential will be more modest. We have about 15,000 lots to develop in our current projects, with a six to 10-year life cycle and we're not taking great risks in residential developments, in that we generally develop the land as we sell the lots to builders. The residential markets we are in, Florida, Texas and Georgia, will continue to see a lot of population growth and new home formation will continue.

Retail has been strong and will, in my opinion, stay strong over the next few years. We are significantly increasing our retail investment and our Avenue product, as well as lifestyle centers in general, are very popular with today's retailers. We also believe power centers will be good investments and we're focusing quite a bit of energy on these. We have several retail projects underway and more on the drawing board.

We're beginning to see an office recovery, but feel it will occur slowly. With productivity enhancements, companies have gotten more efficient with their use of office space. Off-shoring has also led to a little less demand. We also see plenty of shadow space–unused, but not vacant office property—that isn't reflected in the vacancy numbers, which may add more time to the recovery. The industrial sector is starting to come back and should see some more recovery in 2005.

Generally, I'm bullish on our development opportunities in 2005.