Bronx native Ralph Esposito grew up admiring the city’s skyline, wanting to have a part in creating it.
The son of a teacher and a butcher who worked on Castle Hill Avenue, Esposito was inspired by the views of Manhattan’s tall buildings from his outer-borough neighborhood.
Even when his family moved to Westchester, they would return to their old stomping grounds every Friday to spend the weekend at his grandmother’s.
“When you drive into the city, that iconic skyline creeps up, and you can feel the energy shift,” he said. “There is nowhere else in the world like New York. From then on, I knew that I wanted to be part of it.”
Now, as the national president of real estate and construction management firm Suffolk, overseeing its New York office, Esposito gets to help shape the skyline that so inspired him in his youth.
From his office in Rockefeller Plaza, Esposito shepherds the construction of real estate projects in the city and surrounding areas.
He got his start working in construction in 1996 as a general contractor at Australian-headquartered firm Lendlease. He rose through the ranks there, taking on various leadership roles and eventually becoming the company’s New York-based president. He left Lendlease for Suffolk in 2020, at first serving as the president of its Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions.
Now in his fifth year at the more than 40-year-old company, which was founded in Boston, no two of Esposito’s days are the same. As he runs a team of 350 staffers, he finds a major part of his job is problem-solving, be it a supply chain, communication or general construction issue.
More recently, Esposito added, that’s included having to navigate the stress and confusion over President Donald Trump’s tariffs on certain imports crucial to the construction industry. Many of the materials Suffolk depends on are made in the States, he said, but a lot are also sourced from around the globe.
Regardless of what happens, Suffolk will continue steadily working. One project that’s currently in the spotlight is the Waldorf Astoria New York, where the firm is responsible for three phases of renovation of the historic hotel, transforming part of it into 375 luxury condominium units and 50,000 square feet of amenities, including a wine cellar.
Another is 520 Fifth Ave., which is designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox and developed by Rabina. Expected to be completed this year, the 1,002-foot-tall structure will span 415,000 square feet and include 100 condominium units, 25 boutique office floors and a members-only club called Moss. And 1 High Line, a mixed-use development at 500 W. 18th St., includes 236 luxury condominiums, a 120-room five-star hotel, ground-floor retail and a publicly accessible landscaped plaza.
“We were very intentional when we took those projects,” he said.”They were visible, and we thought that they would bring the brand a lot of notoriety. We’re really proud of the product that will get delivered.”
Overall, the company has more than 25 projects underway in the city and more than 350 nationwide. The firm’s revenue last year was $5.5 billion, according to its latest annual impact report.
After three decades of working in the real estate industry, Esposito still relies on a childhood lesson to guide him in his day-to-day efforts. It came in the form of words on a small sign his father hung over a workbench in their garage.
“‘The gods are watching,'” he recalls the sign saying. “It’s an important reminder to do things the right way and take the high road in everything you do.”
The headline of this story has been updated to reflect that Ralph Esposito is the president, not CEO, of Suffolk Construction.
