Catalfumo Construction offers full-service construction and real estate development services to clients in Florida.

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The slogan for Catalfumo Construction and Development Inc. is “quality from the ground up,” and “from the ground up” is also a good way to describe the journey President Dan Catalfumo took to become one of South Florida’s largest contractors. The company marks its 30th anniversary this year as the seventh-largest general contractor in that region, and Catalfumo says its attentiveness to the client’s needs, its comprehensive services and its quality craftsmanship have earned it that position.

“We prevail as one of the most dominant, respected, privately held companies in South Florida’s commercial and residential construction economy,” Catalfumo says. “With revenues in excess of $300 million and over 30 million square feet of completed construction with an aggregate contract value of over $2 billion, our company has truly become a full-service powerhouse.”

Catalfumo Construction is a full-service construction and real estate development firm based in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. It says it “offers a menu of other services, from broker services committed to securing the most appropriate spaces for [our] clients’ operations, to sales and leasing, and facilities management.

“[We are] a single-source provider of comprehensive pre-construction, planning, design, zoning, permitting and development service for virtually every type of capital project, [including] commercial, office/corporate campus, medical/biotechnology, industrial, hospitality, education, restaurant and high-rise tower segments,” the company adds.

Behind the services is an organization that not only provides clients with a plethora of services, but also the care and understanding that allows the two sides to work together harmoniously and toward the best possible outcome. Catalfumo says his company always works with the client’s best interests in mind, and as a result, builds the best project it can.

Building Up
Catalfumo built the company into what it is today on the strength of one project – his own home. While working in his father’s shoe repair shop at the age of 20, Catalfumo built a house for himself. However, when a passerby noticed the project and inspected it, he made Catalfumo an offer to buy it. After completing and selling the property, Catalfumo was inspired to begin a career as a homebuilder.

In 10 years, the success of Catalfumo’s custom homebuilding enterprise led him to transition the company from residential to commercial development. “By 1992, Catalfumo Construction celebrated completion of an astonishing 1 million square feet of commercial construction,” the company says.

From there, Catalfumo Construction began racking up awards and recognition from local newspapers to Ernst & Young. High-profile clients such as Office Depot, Motorola and Wackenhut came calling, and soon the company was taking on such significant projects as the Oceanfront Marriott Vacation Club Resort on Singer Island and the Port of Palm Beach Cruise Terminal.

Point of View
Catalfumo Construction’s success has been due in part to the company’s ability to step into the owner’s shoes and see a project from his or her perspective, Catalfumo says. “Catalfumo distinguishes itself with the abilities to seamlessly tailor its resources, approach and methodology to the specifics of the project and the requirements of the client,” he says. “In conjunction with client representatives, we help assess the business today, tomorrow and into the future.

“We will take the proactive step of sitting alongside the client in the owner’s chair,” Catalfumo continues. “This way, we are absolutely sure that we operate with their best interests in mind. We have seasoned professionals who can mine the reservoir of information and assist customers to arrive at the right decision. At Catalfumo, what we do is to help customers navigate the unstable waters that impact real estate decisions.”

The company’s comprehensive services and eye for quality have also proven to be major factors in its growth, Catalfumo says. “We pride ourselves by offering our clients one-stop shopping, literally from A to Z,” he says. “Catalfumo has dedicated in-house resources at every stage of the process. The hallmark of our success has been quality projects developed, built and managed by the industry’s leading experts and consultants.

“At Catalfumo, we possess the ideology of creating properties that offer the highest level of premier style and innovation by providing the finest amenities, innovative architecture, signature interiors and quality construction,” Catalfumo continues. “Combine this with our ‘quality from the ground up’ principle, and our clients are assured the very best result – total satisfaction.”

All of this adds up to a winning formula, as demonstrated by the company’s amount of repeat business and positive word-of-mouth. According to Catalfumo, the company attributes more than 70 percent of its revenue to repeat customers and those gained through personal recommendations.

“Good supervision and attention to detail is the key to a successful project,” Executive Vice President Ed Meinzinger says.

Catching the Wave
Catalfumo says the industry is changing, and the company is prepared change along with it. “Construction is moving toward commercial and industrial space with an emphasis on healthcare and biotechnology and so are we,” he says.

“We just completed a new facility for the Anspach Effort, a leader in the manufacturing of high-speed instrumentation for specialized surgical applications,” Catalfumo continues. “Their new building encompasses a multi-laboratory complex, lecture hall and medical training areas within a three-story, tilt-wall structure of nearly 50,000 square feet, located adjacent to its corporate headquarters. In 1998, Catalfumo built the Anspach Effort’s original corporate headquarters, marking the beginning of a longstanding and successful partnership.”

Hospitality is another booming sector of the construction market, and Catalfumo says his company is right in the thick of things, with several hotel projects under construction. These include a 180-room Courtyard by Marriott on Singer Island; a 140-room hotel in Palm Beach Gardens; a 560-room Hilton in Pompano Beach, Fla.; and a 400-room Westin hotel in West Palm Beach, Fla. Catalfumo Construction serves as developer, builder and owner on all of these projects, Catalfumo says.

The company’s relationship with Marriott has lasted 10 years, and began with the development of Ocean Pointe in Palm Beach Shores, Fla., a 640,000-square-foot oceanfront resort featuring five eight-story buildings. “This five-phase, award-winning development is a signature project for Catalfumo,” Catalfumo says.

Although the residential market has cooled nationwide, Florida’s housing sector has fared better, and that has had some residual effects on other areas of the construction market that Catalfumo sees becoming much busier in the near future. “In the next five years, the wave will move toward civic construction – city halls, community buildings, fire/police stations, schools – to keep up with the growth,” he says.

It has already moved into this arena in a big way, Catalfumo says. In January 2007, the company began work on the City Center project for the city of West Palm Beach. The project covers an entire city block, and will include the city’s new public library, city hall and a nonprofit cultural and educational institute.

Community Involvement
Community is an important concept for Catalfumo Construction, and the company has done a lot to give back to its hometown. Catalfumo established the Daniel S. Catalfumo Family Foundation in 2003, and since then, has given more than $1.5 million in gifts to the community. Catalfumo’s daughter, Cara Catalfumo, is the administrator of the foundation.

“Catalfumo knows the consequence of giving back to the community that we proudly call home,” she says. “Our motto at Catalfumo is: ‘Individually we are one drop; together we are an ocean.’”

The foundation donates money, materials and supplies to organizations that provide emergency assistance, mental and physical health assistance, abuse and neglect prevention, education and civic enrichment, according to the company. For example, the foundation participates in Race For the Cure, supports blood drives and in March of this year donated $100,000 to the American Red Cross. “We are certain that our pledge will help further the outstanding humanitarian work that the Red Cross does,” Dan Catalfumo says.

For the organization as a whole, it is these efforts, more than the company’s size and revenues, that gauge its success. “While success is too often measured by the type of car one drives, the home one lives in, or the money one makes, for Catalfumo Construction and Development success is gauged by how much is given back to the community,” Cara Catalfumo says. “Our passionate commitment to the community where we live and conduct business, and our altruistic record, reflects directly on the hundreds of volunteer hours donated by our employees to schools, local organizations and special event activities for charities and the arts.”