One of the region’s biggest general contractors is expanding to Orlando and Tampa.
Miami-based Coastal Construction Group will open a Central Florida office in Orlando and named Sean DeMartino as president of the Central and North Florida division, the company announced on Wednesday.
DeMartino left Balfour Beatty, where he was a division president, to join Coastal. He has more than 30 years of experience and has worked on projects like Walt Disney’s Land of Pandora: The World of Avatar, the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Orlando and the FIU Student Academic Success Center.
In South Florida, Coastal is building or has recently completed such projects as the Miami Beach Edition, Porsche Design Tower, Paramount Miami Worldcenter, Residences by Armani/Casa and Faena Miami Beach.
Competition among contractors in the tri-county area has increased amid a downsized and different mix of work, Tom Murphy, Coastal co-president, said in The Real Deal‘s June issue.
The general contractor was No. 2 on TRD’s ranking of firms by number of employees, with 325 employees in South Florida. MCM topped the ranking.
Most of the top firms acknowledge that they’re facing significant headwinds. A tighter lending market, for example, has resulted in far fewer construction loans. – Katherine Kallergis