2nd generation running DDB Contracting
NEWTON. Eric Albanese takes over general construction business from his father, Edward.
Newton /
| 14 Jul 2024 | 02:04
DDB Contracting of Newton completed the second phase of the multiphase renovation of Hilton’s DoubleTree in Syracuse, N.Y., in March. (Photos provided)
DDB Contracting of Newton completed exterior improvements to Remington Hospitality’s Bucks County Sheraton in Langhorne, Pa., last fall.
DDB Contracting of Newton completed the renovation of Mattress Warehouse’s retail location in Voorhees last fall.
DDB Contracting is a general construction business in Newton. It is run by Eric Albanese, son of Edward Albanese, who founded the company in 1987.
“I have been the president and CEO for the past eight to 10 years now. We are a family-owned general construction business,” Eric said.
Before starting the company, Edward worked in construction and carpentry.
“His partner wanted to focus on residential construction. My father conversely wanted to focus on commercial construction. He transitioned the business into a general contracting business sometime around, I want to say, it was 1989. That is when it became what it is today: DDB Contracting,” Eric said.
He started working on and off with the company after he finished high school.
After he graduated from New York University, he became a part-time field employee. “At the time, I didn’t know if it was going to become a permanent thing. But as I transitioned into the office, I kind of fell in love with the business.”
He worked in many positions before taking the top job.
“Whether it’d be field construction, field supervision, onto project management and estimating, and ultimately, I kind of overtook my father’s duties of running the office and overseeing the entire business,” he said.
DDB employs 30 to 50 people and has worked for well-known companies, such as CNBC, Hilton and Sheraton.
“More recently, we’ve done some luxury hotel work out in Beaver Creek, Colorado. We did work at the Park Hyatt in Beaver Creek within the past couple of years. We’ve done work at the Renaissance Hotel in Nashville. We’ve done a lot of work at the Hilton in Parsippany, New Jersey. We’ve did some work at the Sheraton in Parsippany, New Jersey.”
This spring, DDB worked on a Hilton Doubletree in Syracuse, N.Y., after water damage occurred. “An individual in one of their guest rooms unfortunately set off a sprinkler. It caused damage to an entire wing of the hotel several floors across.
“We don’t involve ourselves too much in remediation, which would be the actual removal of damaged materials, things like mold. So instead, once the remediation was completed, we came in and did the entire renovation of that space.”
Finding workers is a massive challenge, he said.
“A lot of the individuals that we have working for us have been doing it for a long time, are getting close to their retirement years. Finding people kind of my age and younger is very difficult. We definitely have a bit of a dwindling labor pool to pull from.”
Eric is not the only family member working at DDB. His younger sister, Delsea, works primarily in marketing and business development there.