News
Women On Wednesday: CONSTRUCTION: NOT JUST A MAN'S WORLD
November 30, 2011
| ACC Construction CEO Michele Medaglia may not have gotten toy bulldozers for her birthday when she was little (as good little boys do), but she also didn't get the memo that women aren't supposed to run construction companies. In fact, she's grown sales every year (sometimes quadrupling them) since she took over 16 years ago. |
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| ACC is one of the few firms that has been working on some project or another in Malkin's Empire State Building for two years. We snapped Michele, who once dreamed of a career in fashion design, in the ESB lobby. But one summer in high school, she agreed to help her dad out at his firm for two weeks, and she never left, taking over in ’95, when it was 11 years old. |
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| We couldn’t resist snapping Michele and the other women who help run the 55-person firm in front of this display of men at work on the ESB over 80 years ago: Iva Kravitz (who handles PR), senior managing director Nancy Erardi, director of administration Stefanie Kravitz (also Iva’s sister), and controller Jennifer Osso. Certifying the firm as a Woman-owned Business Enterprise was part of the growth strategy and succession plan from dad to daughter. ACC still concentrates on commercial interior construction but also works on healthcare, hospitality, retail, education, and ground-up projects. It even did a renovation of the ESB observation deck in the late ’80s when the building was still owned by Helmsley-Spear. |
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| We snapped this from the 80th floor of the ESB. Nancy, who also grew up in a family business (ever heard of Sbarro?), tells us Malkin hired ACC to build out the 53rd and 75th floors into suites last year, and it's now doing the same on the 76th. It's also demolishing three other floors and turning one into a white box (the stage before interior buildout). Among the firm’s other current projects: 50k SF in SL Green’s 100 Church for Centerline Capital, a five-floor project for a Fortune 500 company, other commercial and healthcare interiors, and the STK steakhouse in the Grace Building. That one’s actually well-done (get it?); its grand opening is next week. |
