Construction Management, Concept to Certificate of Occupancy
Services — for developers and owners
Every project carries the same three risks: the budget drifts, the schedule slips, or a trade goes sideways and nobody catches it until it is expensive. Cornerstone’s job is to keep control of all three, from the first feasibility question through your certificate of occupancy.
We are a construction management and general contracting firm that takes projects from raw land and unapproved ideas to finished, occupiable buildings. For developers and owners, that means one accountable team holding the budget, the schedule, and the quality standard across every stage, so control never changes hands and nothing falls between phases.
Pre-Development: know what you can build before you commit
We establish what the site will actually support, and what it will cost, before you are financially exposed.
Dimensions, setbacks, topography, feasibility and parking studies, a preliminary financial model, and a zoning and entitlement path, assembled with the design, engineering, and legal partners the project needs. You reach the planning board with a complete, defensible package and a budget you can underwrite against.
Pre-Construction: reach shovel-ready without surprises
Once approvals are in hand, we convert concept into build-ready documents, bid the work to prequalified subcontractors, secure permits across every agency in play (building department, Soil Conservation, County, NJDEP, DOT, and utilities), and set the schedule and logistics. You mobilize with scope locked, pricing confirmed, and no open questions.
Construction Management: hold the line to turnover
We manage every trade, every dollar, and every day from mobilization to certificate of occupancy, then hand you a fully documented turnover with warranties and closeout. Whether we run the project as your construction manager or your general contractor, you have one accountable partner and one point of control.
Control is not a promise, it is a system. On every project, the following run as standard, not as extras:
- A detailed schedule with a rolling two-week look-ahead, so slippage is visible before it costs you.
- Daily field reports and photo logs tied directly to quality-control records.
- Quality assurance and quality control checklists at each phase.
- A safety program under which each subcontractor conducts and documents its own toolbox talks, verified as part of our field oversight.
- Maintained redline and as-built drawings, with complete submittal and RFI logs.
- Cost forecasting and detailed, line-item accounting, updated continuously rather than at milestones.
- Monthly written progress reports and bi-weekly ownership meetings with documented minutes.
- A structured turnover: warranty documentation, closeout, and a full contractor contact directory.
The through-line: you always know where your budget, schedule, and quality stand, because we measure and report all three on a fixed cadence, not only when asked.
Our budgets are built from historical cost data on projects we have completed, not from rough per-square-foot assumptions. That gives you a detailed, line-item budget early enough to shape the deal, accurate enough to underwrite against, and specific enough that value engineering becomes a precise conversation instead of a guess.
Control is only as good as the people enforcing it. Cornerstone’s projects are run by a senior bench:
- Eric Salvaterra, Director of Construction, brings four decades managing complex, high-end developments from preconstruction through turnover across multifamily, healthcare, hospitality, life science, commercial, and industrial work.
- Thomas Pugliese, Senior Project Manager, holds a Master of Science in Real Estate from NYU and built his career at Toll Brothers and Greystone, with deep command of entitlement, financial modeling, and budgeting.
- Barton Schack, Project Manager, brings 25 years across acquisitions, development, and financial structuring.
Behind them, a full team of construction managers, project managers, and a construction administrator carry the same standards into the field.
We structure the contract around your risk posture, not ours. We deliver as general contractor under a lump-sum contract, as construction manager, or under open-book cost-plus and shared-savings arrangements when transparency and aligned incentives matter more than a single fixed number. The right structure is a decision we make with you at the outset, not a default we impose.
Multifamily, mixed use, healthcare and assisted living, commercial, and industrial.
Bring us a site, an idea, or a set of drawings. We will tell you what is feasible, what it will cost, and whether it is
worth pursuing, before you are committed.
