The Mann Report: Mr. Residential - The Rinaldi Group

Rinaldi Group’s Aloft Climb Upon The Ladder Of Success

Founded in December 2003, The Rinaldi Group, LLC began with the dream of offering the owner and developer in the New York and New Jersey metropolitan area a new brand unique to the marketplace and namely, a non-union construction management and general contracting firm with all the capabilities, talent, depth and financial strength of the major union firms only at a 20% to 30% overall savings from their hard costs of construction. Ten years later, that is exactly what they are doing with sales in excess of $400 million, A-rated bonding, SDI or Subcontractor Default Insurance commonly known in the business as “Subguard” and a string of marquee projects, including their award-winning residential Landmark conversion of 220 Water Street in the DUMBO section of Brooklyn, named 2012 Multi-Family Residential Project of the Year by the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce.

“The New York City marketplace is only in recent years catching up to what we have been doing since 1996,” Anthony Rinaldi claimed as Founder, CEO and President of the firm. “My partner Jordan DeCandia and I have been doing significant non-union projects almost 20 years now, going back to when we were both principals in other firms,” Mr. Rinaldi advised. Jordan DeCandia, The Rinaldi Group’s Vice-President, was one of the first to embark on the transition from union to non-union on high-rise residential and hotel projects in Manhattan. “We often get a kick out of some of the owners and developers who are themselves only now transitioning from union to non-union and who just can’t believe it’s possible to do a 30-to-40 story condo or hotel non-union,” Mr. DeCandia stated. “But, we are doing it and we are doing it in a big way,” he followed.

Currently, the firm is building a $104 million Riu Hotel in Times Square at the corner of Restaurant Row on West 46th Street and Eighth Avenue. The hotel consists of four different block and lot addresses, and there are four different and distinct TCO’s required encompassing and connecting a seven-story HPD housing component and a five-story townhouse in addition to two high-rise hotel structures 29 stories and 31 stories, respectively, all together spanning 335,000 square feet and 641 keys. And if that isn’t enough, they are also converting into 131 ultra high-end luxury condos, 15 stories plus a cellar and 420,000 square feet of the infamous NYC Landmark formally known as The Clock Tower Building, originally owned by New York Life Insurance. To make matters even more interesting, the work is currently being performed around the clock through two 12-hour shifts, while coordinating around four-stories of the New York City Criminal Courthouse, an operating and functioning facility. Currently valued at $172 million, the firm is finishing Phase 1 demolition and asbestos abatement, while providing value-engineering services in readiness to start Phase 2 new construction.

Whether it is full ground-up high-rise construction or a major conversion and Landmark restoration, The Rinaldi Group is building multiple and concurrent $100 million plus projects throughout New York for some of the most prevalent developers in NYC. “Today, we are building five-star hotels 30 stories and higher and we are doing it timely with the highest quality and workmanship,” Mr. Rinaldi proudly exclaimed. Jordan DeCandia added, “The stigmas previously associated with non-union projects no longer apply, or at least, they do not apply to us as we have been doing it a lot longer than most of our competition and so, our vetting process is well established and our stable of qualified, skilled, trained and licensed tradesmen is second to none, having built and developed these relationships some 10 to 20 years.” Add to that the firm’s robust pre-qualification process for subcontractors and vendors, most of whom already maintain their own A-rated bonding, and the firm truly conducts its business like that of the largest, most prestigious union firms throughout NYC only at a fraction of the cost.

For example, Arch Insurance, an AM Best A+ rated surety, is one of only three insurance companies nationwide who underwrite SDI programs which provide owners and developers and their lenders contractor performance guaranty instruments, and in September of this year, The Rinaldi Group became their first and only non-union construction management and general contracting firm in New York City to be underwritten and awarded such a distinguished SDI program. Already, the firm is using their SDI program for the developer and his lenders on Manhattan’s first Hyatt House hotel, another 30-story hotel the firm is building in Chelsea on the corner of West 28th Street and Sixth Avenue.

“With our SDI program, we now offer our clients what only a few firms in all of New York can and even fewer who can in the nonunion marketplace,” Rinaldi explained. “This is a major achievement and a milestone that truly defines and measures the success and growth of our company,” Rinaldi added. In addition to SDI, The Rinaldi Group is also now capable of providing project specific CCIP insurance, otherwise known as a Contractor Controlled Insurance Program, another exclusive insurance program that separates the firm from much of their competition and provides clients significant general liability and workers compensation insurance savings few firms in the industry can offer.

With over seventy full-time construction professionals and employees consisting of licensed architects and engineers, project managers and superintendents and NYCDOB licensed fire and site safety managers, The Rinaldi Group is having a significant impact on the New York City residential and hotel landscape, providing clients the flexibility to meet any and all of their building, marketing and programming needs.

A clear example is the firm’s recent award of Harlem’s mixed-use Landmark Victoria Theater on West 125th Street and Frederick Douglas Boulevard, adjacent to the Apollo Theater. This 400,000 -square-foot, $105 million private development financed through the Empire State Development Corporation consists of two (2) 26-story high-rise towers encompassing a four-star Renaissance Hotel with 211 keys and a residential rental with 191 units designated for a market-rate/affordable housing split of 70/30 in addition to the three-story landmark restoration and conversion of the existing Victoria Theater into 25,000 square feet of retail, performance and theater space and a 5,000-square-foot hotel ballroom. In summation, this unique development mixes market-rate residential construction with affordable housing and a new groundup high-rise hotel with low-rise landmark restoration, retail construction and the associated coordination with and between numerous federal, state and local governmental agencies, including meeting W/MBE and other local business requirements. “Having also built dozens of public schools, colleges, libraries, municipalities, landmark courthouses, athletic facilities, training academies and performing arts centers, our team’s public works background also provides us with the added administrative depth and managerial experience of dealing with multiple city agencies and their required paperwork and filings, a practice few CM’s and GC’s in the private sector have,” Mr. Rinaldi noted.

No longer doing business in the public sector, the firm has developed the technical sophistication and expertise from those early years which they apply today in the private sector, functioning more like extensions of their clients’ development teams rather than serving solely as their clients’ contractor, a practice found at the core of the firm’s business philosophy and strategy and one that has served them well.

The Rinaldi Group LLC
One Harmon Meadow Blvd
Secaucus, NJ 07094
Tel: 201-305-8786
Fax: 201-601-4067
www.rinaldinyc.com