Share this post

Angelo Gallina started the Gallina Development Corp. as a homebuilder more than 30 years ago. Today, his son Andy runs the company, which has moved away from its roots in homebuilding to commercial real estate development. “My father was a carpenter when the big boom of homebuilding took place in the 1950s and 1960s,” says owner Andy Gallina. “In the 1980s, we transitioned to building and leasing office and warehouse properties.”

Gallina Development has focused on building offices, warehouses and business parks. “We have developed a number of flex buildings that can be split up for use as an office with a warehouse,” Gallina says. He sees another prospective growth market that the company would like to set it sights on. “The medical office building market has a lot of potential with all of the focus on healthcare these days,” he says.

A Perfect Landing

The company recently completed the first 33,000-square-foot building of its South Pointe Landing project on 5.15 acres of land in Greece, N.Y. This two-story structure was built for medical office use, Gallina says, with the floor plans built to suit the tenants’ needs. Features of the masonry and steel frame building include a brick façade, portico main entrance, marble foyer, solid core oak doors with wood frames and windowsills. Gallina adds that the parking lot for the building can accommodate 170 cars.

Although Gallina Development hasn’t applied for LEED certification, Gallina says the company adheres to green techniques. “This building [was wrapped] very tight with building wrap and insulation,” Gallina says. “The mechanical systems are very energy efficient.”

The University of Rochester Medical Center Orthopedics and Rehabilitation Department is the first tenant and will offer specialty care in orthopedics; physiatry; sports and spine rehabilitation; hand and upper extremity rehabilitation; and imaging services to adults and children, along with daytime urgent care for injuries. Additional University of Rochester tenants on the first floor include University Urology and the U of R Blood Draw Lab.

A second building will sit on a 4-acre site adjacent to the original and will serve as a flex space building. Ground has yet to broken on the second building, but Gallina says it will offer 36,000 square feet of office/warehouse possibilities.

Another of Gallina’s developments is Elmgrove Crossings. This development contains 280,000 square feet of flex space on 140 acres. 

The project was originally conceived as a business park but has grown to include retail, medical offices, restaurants and a 127,500-square-foot indoor recreational building. 

In 2005, the zoning was changed from industrial to planned unit development to offer the community a wide range of property types. Elmgrove Crossings has a 98 percent occupancy rate, the company says.

‘Cherish’ the Subs

Gallina says the company’s role is more of a construction manager rather than an actual builder, so he relies heavily on his subcontractors. “We really cherish our subcontractors,” Gallina explains. “They make us look good, so we treat them well. With all the quick turnarounds [of office/warehouse space] we do with them, we’ve built up some pretty good relationships.

“We’ve never had any issues [with safety]” he adds. “We’re at a pretty comfortable level with our subcontractors. We have safety meetings to explain what we expect, and in meeting our expectations, there haven’t been any problems. Our subs are responsible for safety training on their own.”

Gallina says there were no safety issues during construction of the 33,000-square-foot medical office building, but there were other challenges during the two-year project.

“We had a lot of weather delays and had to work extra hard to complete the project on time,” he notes. 

“Since this was our first building in Greece, we had to adhere to a whole new set of processes and approvals,” Gallina continues. “We had to work with building staff that we didn’t know and hadn’t worked with before.”