Leadership Success Story
“In all our dealings with our customers, honesty, integrity, fairness and the clients’ needs come first.”
– Joseph S. Raia
The customer always comes first
In all our dealings with our customers, honesty, integrity, fairness, and the clients’ needs come first. These were family values that we learned at an early age that have become the cornerstone of our business today,” Joseph adds. “We have always stressed the importance of teamwork and exceptional service. Our reputation in the marketplace is paramount.”
“In the beginning we would basically find a location and construct a building,” he continues. “Today, we’re interested in an institutional-quality portfolio. We invest in and develop high-quality buildings in prime locations.”
“We are a family business, and as such, we are focused on long-term, sustainable performance that will benefit the family and our employees over time,” Samuel stresses. “We continually look for opportunities to harvest gains and redeploy equity.”
For example, in October 2005, the Raias sold a medical office building on Prospect Avenue in Hackensack. The proceeds were used to acquire a 260-unit, class – A residential apartment community in Little Rock, Arkansas in January 2006. This was in addition to a 219-unit property in Wilmington, North Carolina they already owned and was followed quickly by the purchase of a 198-unit community in Charleston, South Carolina.
“We continually look for opportunities to harvest gains and redeploy equity,” Samuel Jr. explains.
Again, we are a family firm focused in long term sustainable performance,” meaning that we constantly scrutinize the portfolio’s properties, performance, and strategies for holding, selling, acquiring, and refinancing assets.
Consolidation in the concrete business
“By the 1980s, there was great momentum in our concrete business,” Samuel notes. “To maintain the volume for the plants, the equipment, and the number of employees, we needed an ever increasing level of business. We were working 12 hour days, 6 days a week, we truly hit our stride.” Then Blue Circle Atlantic Corporation in 1987, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of building materials was looking to establish a presence in the New York and New Jersey marketplace and made us a compelling buyout offer. “We stayed on for a few years as consultants, then refocused our energies on developing and investing in commercial properties.”
“We are focused on long-term, sustainable performance that will benefit the family and our employees over time.”
Self Storage continues to be a driver of growth
“This is an exciting place to be” states Lawrence C. Raia who recently joined company as the Director of the Self Storage business. “Raia Self Storage combines extremely well designed and built storage buildings with great people and efficient operations to ultimately offer a much better product and experience to our customers. This is the solid foundation to which we plan to add three additional storage locations to over the next twenty four to thirty six months.”