Tom DeLuca is the new project manager at Vestcor Construction Services.
WHAT WILL HE DO?
He will oversee the renovation of the Lynch Building, which is being converted to loft apartments and renamed 11 East Forsyth.
HOW DID HE GET THE JOB?
He had been working with Finlay Properties on various projects, including Southern Grove, for about a year when Vestcor called. “I am originally from the Washington D.C. metropolitan area and had done extensive renovation work up there. They had been looking for someone with that type of experience. I just hit it off with the vice president of construction, Charles Batah, in terms of my experience and it was just a good fit.”
IS THIS GOING TO BE A BIG JOB?
“It’s a good size job. No, it’s not the largest I’ve done, but yes it is a challenge, all renovations are. It’s the unknowns that make them more fun than the typical reading of blueprints.”
PROBLEMS YOU’VE RUN INTO?
“We all knew there was asbestos and lead in the building. It is an extensive renovation because it is a complete gut on the interior. We are saving, from a historical standpoint, some doors, old mail slot and some of the finer wood baseboards.” He said they are also trying to save things like the old elevator system and old marble inside.
WHAT ABOUT THE EXTERIOR?
“The outside of the building has that Chicago architecture that makes the restoration on the outside a little more extensive in terms of saving that look. The outside has three different types of material on it. It has limestone on it that will be continued from the third floor window all the way to the ground floor. Right now it’s granite and that’s all going to come off. The terra-cotta panels will remain. We will grind out all the old joints on it, clean it, reseal it and put a new silicone on it to bring back the glaze and shine that it’s missing now. The old tower will remain and that’s where the new sign will be. When the building opened it had storefronts with canopies and all the canopies will go back on it. The storefronts on Forsyth and Main streets will become retail. We are also adding a parking garage to the back.”
HOW LONG SHOULD THE PROJECT TAKE?
It is projected at 16 months. The units will range from 585 square feet to almost 1,100 square feet. They will be apartment rentals. The plans were done by PQH Architects.
IMPACT ON DOWNTOWN?
“I actually think it is going to be very good. I’m only going to speak from experience and I remember Washington D.C. in the early 1980s when there wasn’t a lot of development going on and you just have to plant the seed. Once one gets going and becomes successful, then you will see a little more need for it. There are quite a few buildings in downtown that have good historical value to them and it would be terrible to tear them down and do nothing with them. When you have something that has been standing so long it can be worth something. There is definitely a need for something like this to develop the downtown. I’ve been here two years and I’ve seen a lot of growth, but I can see that there is definitely a potential for more growth.”
GROWING UP IN THE BUSINESS
“My family is in the construction business. My father owned DeLuca Construction and as a little kid, starting at about eight years old, I learned construction on the weekends and during summer vacation. With a family-owned business you ended up doing a considerable amount of construction work. My father gave me plenty of opportunities to learn several trades from a framer to trim carpenter, flooring and concrete work. I got very used to the construction industry at a young age. It’s a fun industry; every day is different.”
HOW DID HE GET INTO CONSTRUCTION?
“I started out right out of high school as a framer. I opened up my own framing company called Avery Construction. I stayed in it for a year until a man I worked for name Bob Concelmo offered me a job as a construction superintendent with J & B Enterprises.” Concelmo had purchased about six old buildings for the taxes owed on them and brought DeLuca in to oversee the renovations from apartment to apartment.
WHAT’S HIS BACKGROUND?
He worked for J & B Enterprises, a developer and contractor company in Virginia, for 18 years. He has extensive experience in new commercial construction and residential and commercial renovations. Many of his renovations were apartment to apartment conversions. “They were complete guts where you keep the outside facade and the floor system and then put all new walls in.”
ADVICE YOU WOULD GIVE TO SOMEONE INTERESTED IN GETTING INTO CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT?
“Construction takes three phases. You have to plan it, organize it and execute it. We are in the planning stages on the Lynch Building and actually the execution part is the easiest part. From a construction management side it probably takes most of the time and there are so many things that you could miss that could cost money down the line. Be dedicated to it and know that this is really what you want to do. It isn’t a 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. job. Either way you look at it, it’s time consuming. But it is a lot of fun because it is different everyday.”
ADVICE ON RENOVATING OLDER BUILDINGS
“First of all, you have to determine what you want to do with it. Do you want to take an office building and turn it into apartments or an apartment building to an office? It all weighs in because the bottom line is that somebody wants to make money on it. When you look at the old buildings you need to look at how much up front environmental work you will have to do: asbestos abatement, lead abatement, demolition you need to do and tax credits you can receive by keeping the historical look to the building. You have to determine if it is a lucrative project to do or not to do.”
IS THIS A LUCRATIVE PROJECT?
“Yes, very lucrative, because it will help kick off everything with Jacksonville. Also, the building was in very good condition. You can get into some of these older buildings that are not as in good shape and it ends up costing more than you thought.”
BIRTHPLACE
Fort Knox, Ky.
FAMILY
He has been married to Delores for 11 years. They have two children, Avery, 9, and Thomas, 5.
HOBBIES
Golf, gardening and spending time with his family.
RESIDES
Orange Park.
FAVORITES
DeLuca enjoys fiction novels by authors including Tom Clancy and Tom Higgins. His favorite movie is the “The Terminator.” He enjoys visiting Italy and dining out at Rosetti’s Italian Restaurant in Mandarin. Even though he’s not a big television buff, he does enjoy the “The X-Files.”
—by Michele Newbern Gillis