Park Avenue
apartment.
Architect: Brian J.
McCarthy Inc.
BJÖRG MAGNEA
His advice to people in his business: “Tell the truth and do your job.”
B“Building is collaboration,” R. Douglass Rice, president of
RD Rice Construction, Inc., says, and he knows a thing or
two about teamwork.
He’s accustomed to working with people who perform a
whole range of roles, from architects and designers
to “the best craftspeople in the city, representing a whole
host of different nationalities and ethnicities.” That wide
swath of people excites Rice, who has spent 30 years in
the business.
“That’s what I love about it,” he says. “In the course of each
day, I’m working with the entire social fabric of this city.”
R.D. Rice is a full-service construction management and
general contracting firm. With Rice at the helm as president,
the company demonstrates, both in its everyday approach
and then very specifically on its Web site, exactly what
excellence means. One key: communication. That means
that clients have access to information both early in and
throughout the process.
Rice has a varied professional background. With a degree
in human biology from Stanford, he worked as a
Kindergarten teacher before making his way into the
building business in 1978. He specialized in the restoration
of old Victorian homes in San Francisco for 10 years before
coming to New York. In New York he was vice-president of
residential construction for a large corporate construction
company before founding R.D. Rice in 1995.
He’s obviously a people person, interested in every aspect
of what he does. He speaks compellingly of visiting the site
in Italy where the marble came from to make a carved
marble tub at the top of the Time Warner Center. He’s
passionate about such details. “If you go to the source
of where things are made, you better understand their
possibilities for design and construction.”
His advice to people in his business: “Tell the truth and do
your job.”
He also has advice to would-be clients during difficult
economic times: This is actually a good time to attract the
best tradespeople and craftspeople. “In really busy times,” he
explains, “you have to wait—and it can cost you. Now is a
great time.”
Overall, those who can afford to build now will find
themselves ahead of the curve. And Rice says his company
is the one to pick, because of its well-deserved reputation
for quality, experience and passion. “We build what
New York designs,” Rice says. And he sounds excited about
continuing to do just that.
