Anthony T Rinaldi

Early Life and education

Rinaldi was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and he is the only child and son of the late Anthony T. Rinaldi, II, a police captain and 33-year veteran of the Hoboken Police Department, and Mary Rinaldi, nee Visaggio, an amateur bowling champion.

Rinaldi attended Secaucus High School in Secaucus, New Jersey and was a K-12 graduate of the Secaucus Public Schools, where he excelled both academically as well as athletically. He graduated with honors and a 3.4 out of 4.0 GPA (A-) and was named to the Star Ledger’s 1st-Team All-State Honors in 1983. Rinaldi received numerous athletic scholarships to play college baseball and was considered one of the top professional catching prospects in the nation, landing tryouts with the then California Angels, the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Cleveland Indians. Rinaldi chose college and an engineering degree first, over a professional career in baseball.

In 1983 Rinaldi accepted a scholarship to play Division I baseball at Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where he majored in Mechanical Engineering and he received his Bachelor of Science in 1988, having taken time away from college when his father passed of colon cancer in 1984, just after Rinaldi and Lehigh came off of one of the university’s most successful baseball seasons in the school’s history, winning the ECC (East Coast Conference) division. He proceeded to be one of the nation’s leading hitters that year, finishing #5 in the ECC with a .393 batting average. In his following two seasons, Rinaldi was named team captain and finished .375 and .354, in his junior and senior seasons, respectively, and was named the team’s Most Valuable Player as a senior in 1987. Years later, Rinaldi would be honored with the distinction of being named to the Secaucus High School Athletic Hall of Fame in March 2002.

In 1988, Rinaldi turned down offers with Consolidated Rail Corporation, Hess Corporation and First Brands Corporation to join HRH Construction, then one of New York City’s and the nation’s largest commercial builders and the construction division of Starrett Corporation, the entity that built the Empire State Building in 1929. There, he was involved in building several high-profile projects, among them the historical Audubon Ballroom, a venue best known for the assassination site of Malcolm X back on February 21, 1965.

Professional and business career

Rinaldi began his high-rise residential career while at HRH, building structures like the 179-unit, 43-Story Le Grand Palais at 250 E. 54th Street, designed by Fox & Fowle Architects, the 521-Unit, 31-Story Monterey at 175 E. 96th Street for The Related Companies as designed by Costas Kondylis & Associates and the 207-Unit, 20-Story Fordham University Dormitory, Lincoln Center Campus at 113 W. 60th Street designed by SLCE Architects. Prior to leaving HRH, Rinaldi worked on the $140 million modernization and renovation project at Elmhurst Hospital Center in Queens, New York. Between 1994 and 1996, he accepted an offer from DeFillips Construction Corporation, a federal and public works construction management firm, where Rinaldi built his first public school P.S.#22 in Brooklyn, New York.

In 1996, Rinaldi was named as Chief Operations Officer of the firm Crain Construction Company located in Jersey City, New Jersey. Between 1996 and 2000, Rinaldi grew the firm's business throughout New Jersey, maintaining a book of business in excess of $50 million and annual sales over $35 million. In 2000 Rinaldi was named the firm’s President. Among the firm’s highlights was its prime contractor award on the retail shopping center expansion project for Westfield Design and Development, at Westfield Garden State Plaza in Paramus, New Jersey, which became at the time, the 9th largest retail shopping center in the nation, and an Honorable Mention Award by the Masonry Institute for the Sharon Road Elementary School in Robbinsville, New Jersey, designed by the Spiezel Architectural Group. In 1999, he was named to the Secaucus High School Alumni Achievement Hall of Fame.

In 2003, Rinaldi founded Anthony T. Rinaldi, LLC., d.b.a. The Rinaldi Group, a private commercial general contracting and construction management firm. In 2004-05, Rinaldi joined forces with George A. Fuller Company at The Ritz Carlton Renaissance Square, 221 Main Street, White Plains, New York, designed by architects Costas Kondylis & Associates, Harvey Kaufman and Frank Nicholson and on Trump Plaza, 175 Hugeunot Street, New Rochelle, New York, by Lessard Design, both projects forming part of real estate tycoon and developer Louis R. Cappelli and Cappilli Enterprises’ extensive portfolio and body of work. At the near completion of both projects in 2008, Rinaldi landed contracts with The Red Apple Group and John Catsimatidis, and Ginsberg Development and GDC Properties, Hawthorne, New York, for whom Rinaldi recently completed 220 Water Street, Brooklyn, New York, a 200,000 SF Landmark conversion of the former Hanan & Son Shoe Factory built between 1893 and 1905, creating 135 high-end, luxury rentals in the DUMBO section of Brooklyn, New York. In 2011, the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce recognized the development and named it as the Multi-family Residential Project of the Year.

By the end of the 2nd Quarter 2014, Rinaldi will be completing the boutique Hilton Garden Inn Hotel at 45 E. 33rd Street between Madison and Park Avenues, a 24-Story, 118,000 SF, 232-Guestroom hotel unique to the customary brand marketed by Hilton and complete with a full-service restaurant and 2nd Floor open bar and lounge serviced by a 2-Story glass-enclosed elevator. The owner is west coast Los Angeles hotel developer Peter Zen and FIT Equities with Vertex Consulting & Engineering serving as the Owner’s Representative and the architect being Ismael Leyva Architects. Rinaldi will be also opening simultaneously for developers Pinkstone Capital & Empire Development a12-Story, 125,397 SF, 124-Unit rental building at the base of the Manhattan Bridge in Brooklyn, designed by Karl Fischer Architects. Between the 2nd and 3rd Quarters 2014, Rinaldi will be also opening at 30 Fletcher Street, The Fairfield Inn Hotel by Marriott, a 31-Story hotel complete with a 2-Story penthouse Unit and 174-Guestrooms spanned over 70,000 SF, located in downtown Manhattan, near the old Fulton Street Fish Market. The property is owned by the prominent hotel developers Jeff & Raymond Lam of Lam Generation and the hotel was designed by Peter Poon Architects.

Meantime, Rinaldi is in the midst of building a $107 million, 29-Story & 31-Story Riu Hotels in Times Square, New York, at the corner of W. 46th Street and Eighth Avenue, providing 641-Guestrooms over 334,812 SF, including a 7-Story, 12-Unit housing component under the purview of the agency New York City Housing Preservation & Development and a 5-Story, 8-Unit townhouse. Additionally, the firm is building a 15-Story with 2-Stories of below-grade parking, 265,271 SF, 205-Unit market-rate rental for repeat customer and client The Red Apple Group and John Catsimatidis, designed by Dattner Architects, while Rinaldi renovates and upgrades the 48-Story, 388-Unit, 400,000 SF luxury rental at 10 E. 29th Street for Matt Adell and Adellco Management. And most recently, the firm has started a $148 million Landmark restoration, rehabilitation and condominium conversion of Elad’s 346 Broadway, a.k.a. 108 Leonard Street, New York, New York, also referred to as The Clock Tower Building and New York Life Insurance Company Building, designed by Beyer Blinder Belle Architects.

Today, Rinaldi maintains a book of business in excess of $300 million.

Life in public office

Between the years 1997 and 2003, Rinaldi served two three-year terms as Board of Education Trustee and as the Chairman of the Buildings & Grounds Committee and Co-Chairman of the Technology Committee in the District of Secaucus, County of Hudson, New Jersey. After his freshman year, Rinaldi was voted Chairman of the Buildings & Grounds Committee 5-years straight by multiple District presidents sitting on both sides of the political aisle, during which time he led the District’s campaigning that ultimately resulted in the passing of a $7 million bond referendum for additions, alterations and MEPS (Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing & Sprinkler) modernizations of two elementary schools, namely Clarendon and Huber Street Elementary School. Rinaldi and the firm led the design-teams of John Veisz of the architectural firm Faridy, Veisz, Fraytak and Brian Meade of Thomson Meade Vincentsen Consulting, and provided pro-bono value-engineering services and expertise that helped maintain the project’s overall budget by limiting change order extras to less than 1%.

During his tenure in his second term, Rinaldi led a one-year campaign that once again resulted in the passing of a $14 million bond referendum for the new ground-up construction of a 1,000 seat Performing Arts Center. Working together again with the design team of John Veisz and Brian Meade, Rinaldi and his firm provided value-engineering re-design services and expertise in assisting the District to finally make the overall project budget after two public bid attempts failed.

Together with his co-chair, the District’s IT Manager & Network Administrator Alvaro E. Vega (today, Rinaldi’s IT Manager & Network Administrator) and the Board Secretary & Treasurer, Rinaldi led the charge of upgrading the District’s antiquated computer systems with over 1,000 new computers, high capacity servers, state-of-the-art software and proprietary administrative system designs utilized by the entire school system across four different buildings throughout the District.

Degrees and licenses

B.S. Mechanical Engineer, Lehigh University, October 1988