Nick Tufano has been involved in the preservation and rehabilitation of approximately 5,100 affordable housing units as vice president of construction at Preservation Partners Development.
Headquartered in Torrance, Calif., the firm specializes in the acquisition and rehabilitation of Sec. 8 properties, completing substantial renovations on nearly 1,600 units across the country last year.
Tufano’s role includes selecting and overseeing the design and construction teams, monitoring the projects through construction completion, and successfully handing off finished projects to the firm’s property management team.“We look at our properties as if we’re going to own them in perpetuity, so we put more into our deals than most developers,” he says. “We know we’re going to have this asset forever.”
Tufano got his start in affordable housing at Restore Neighborhoods LA, a nonprofit that uses Neighborhood Stabilization Program grants to develop and rehabilitate properties in Los Angeles. Tufano, whose father and grandfather owned small apartment and three-flat buildings in Chicago, then worked at ICON Builders before joining Preservation Partners in 2014.
“I get to be involved and see the final outcome of the renovation of properties that desperately need it,” he says. “Anything we can do at these properties, I believe, positively impacts the people who live there. The fact that we can do something significant is incredible.”
Preservation Partners often acquires and renovates aging family developments, which also gives Tufano an opportunity to build or turn around common areas and playgrounds for children who live on the property. Seeing the impact on the kids, he says, is one of the best parts of the job.
