Whether by accident or design, Cindee Wolf began to prepare for her career in land planning as early as elementary school.

“I wanted to be an architect. Dad was in real estate at the time, and he used to bring home the little floor plans and I would trace them,” said Wolf, who was about 9 or 10, growing up in Pennsylvania, when the tracing began.

Now a Wilmington resident and land planner who owns her own firm, Wolf combines her love of architecture with a local knowledge that goes back decades to assist property developers in site design and as they work through government planning procedures.

As the economy has grown, so has the client list for Wolf’s company, Design Solutions.

She was involved in five of the projects up for a vote during the July 1 meeting of Wilmington’s city planning commission.

“I guess I’ve been around here long enough that a lot of it’s word of mouth,” Wolf said when asked how clients find her (she doesn’t have a website). “My name and contact information is on every application.”

Recently, she was the applicant for a rezoning needed to build Ogden Marketplace, a new shopping center planned for Market Street at Middle Sound Loop Road that’s expected to be anchored by the city’s first Publix grocery store.

Lately, several of the proposals she’s helped with have involved grocery stores, including what’s been described as a “boutique” grocery store proposed for property off Eastwood Road.

And while she works with many commercial developers, she’s also worked with residential proposals.

“The past two years have been apartments, apartments, apartments. This year is groceries, groceries, groceries,” Wolf said, referring to recent development trends in general. 

A land planner in Wilmington since 1990, Wolf was the land records director for New Hanover County in 1981 before moving to the Triangle and working with John R. McAdams of McAdams Co. in Chapel Hill.

“He was fabulous at these types of things because Chapel Hill was a tough market to work in,” Wolf said. “Our biggest client was J.P. Goforth, who was then doing Landfall here in Wilmington.”

Before that, her college choice got Wolf started on the path she would tread later in life. She  graduated from Penn State University with a Bachelor of Science degree in landscape architecture.

“My classes were a little bit of civil engineering, and surveying was a necessity … it was a real broad
spectrum of everything that I do today, so I value it because I might not be fabulous at any one thing, but I’ve got a broad spectrum of things that I can accomplish,” Wolf said.

Tom Johnson, an attorney with Raleigh-based Nexsen Pruet, is among the number of professionals Wolf works with on projects in Wilmington.

“She’s extremely knowledgeable about the development standards in both the city and the county and just has so much information based on her years of experience,” Johnson said. “It’s extremely helpful for anyone developing property in Wilmington and New Hanover County.”

In recent years, developers have tended to use land planners more often, Johnson and Wolf said. At one time, mostly surveyors, engineers or attorneys would present proposed projects to the community as they requested rezonings or other approvals.

“I think that’s been my success – I’ve had enough experience with all the aspects of it to take a project through the process,” Wolf said.

Wolf, who worked on about 50 projects last year and juggles between 12 and 15 projects at various stages at any one time, often conducts required public meetings for her clients, presenting projects to adjacent property owners and members of the community who are interested in learning more about a particular proposal.

She compiles reports from those meetings for city and county officials and also answers any questions they might have.

“She has the vision to be able to understand the project and how it will fit at the prospective locations. Her ability to see that and to work with that is excellent,” Johnson said. “She’s also developed a tremendous rapport with the governing bodies and they respect her opinion, both the city council and the county commission.”

In addition to operating Design Solutions, Wolf is a member of the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority’s board. She said in her free time, she enjoys a variety of outdoor activities, with recreation on the water topping the list.

“Sailing is what brought me back to Wilmington,” said Wolf, who these days helms a 17-foot boat.
She also describes herself as “sort of an adventure freak,” listing rock hopping, for example, as the aim of a vacation she took with friends last year.

While rock hopping involves negotiating some rocky terrain, her work as a land planner also comes with obstacles to overcome.

But finding ways to overcome obstacles, Wolf said, has always been one of the reasons she’s drawn to her career.

“I love the thrill of the hunt,” she said.