Interstruct Tampa Turns 10

By Megan Padilla; Photos by Chad Baumer

It’s fitting that metal is the symbol for a 10^th anniversary. Interstruct Tampa moved into its new HQ, a stunning adaptive reuse building that is clad in custom metalwork, just as the company celebrated 10 years of serving the Greater Tampa Bay area.

Interstruct president Matt Coticchio came to Interstruct in 2007, first as a project engineer and then project manager, working with company co-founders Ryan Young and Rich Monroe in Orlando. As Coticchio moved into business development, he was ready to move closer to home in Clearwater to be near family and proposed to Young and Monroe that he take Interstruct to the west coast.

“Matt is the partner than Rich and I always envisioned,” says Young. “He has a clear entrepreneurial mindset for growing the company.”

Growing the Company

Coticchio hung his first shingle in 2010 on a 900sf office in the Urban Centre at Westshore, the region’s premier office building. “Back then, it was just Malena (Costello, his office manager) and me,” he recalls. “I started off doing $1-$2M of work and slowly grew, bringing on new superintendents.” The company cycled through a few more offices, landing on a model that would predict the company’s future in Tampa as well as Orlando.

Coticchio found a building on Cypress Avenue in which Interstruct’s offices would occupy half and the rest would be leased. “Ultimately,” he says, “that became our next story.” Referring to the company’s signature building on West Kennedy that was completed in 2020. Interstruct occupies the upper 5,000 sf and will lease the ground floor to a retail tenant.

Today, Coticchio has 20 employees (with little turnover), all of whom he kept working through the pandemic to keep the 2020 projects – and revenue – on track. He’s already inked $10M of business in Q1 of 2021, on course for a $40M year.

Building Better With Design + Build

In the early years, Coticchio forged relationships with the best and biggest companies in town: Highwoods, CBRE, Jones Lang LaSalle, and Cushman Wakefield. “Those are my overhead clients,” he says. Interstruct regularly bids and builds tenant interiors, site work and other capital improvement projects on those REIT companies’ holdings

 

In recent years, Interstruct has shifted gears to hone their design-build methodology in which the company handles the entire process from concept to completion, utilizing the Interstruct Architecture Team, or sometimes partnering with trusted Tampa-based architecture and design firms. “Design-build is just a better, more streamlined process,” says Coticchio.

Interstruct Tampa honed its everything-under-one-roof, design-build methodology on several childcare centers owned by Kharey Wisdom. “He gave me a shot at doing $1M-and-up projects,” said Coticchio, which helped steer the company from corridor and restroom renovations to ground-up construction. All but one have been new construction ranging from 8,000-12,000 sf. “We just finished another that was a 12,000sf adaptive reuse,” says Coticchio. All of the childcare centers wrap up within a 4-to-6-month timeline.

Capitalizing on Strengths at Suncoast Crossing

Another recent project that fits this model is the adaptive reuse of a 150,000sf former Super Target shopping center in Odessa, Florida. Interstruct Tampa planned and completed the shell work of Suncoast Crossing for the owner. The Interstruct Architecture Team designed a new façade which was also built by Interstruct, and the company was then contracted by anchor tenant Rasmussen University to build out the 46,000sf high-tech interior for the Health Sciences educator.

“Design-build negotiated work is the future and what we do best,” says Coticchio. “It is the best process because we have a stake front to back and hold budgets for clients.”

Expanding Interstruct’s Own Architect-as-Developer Projects

Design-build brings Interstruct Tampa to the present but the 2020 completion of Interstruct’s new office in a building it purchased, renovated and will partially lease is the model for Interstruct’s expanding role as a developer.

“Matt has an uncanny ability to spot real estate opportunities for Interstruct,” says Young.

For instance, the building on West Kennedy is the result of a client meeting where Coticchio walked in to discuss a tenant improvement project and immediately recognized the value of the off-market, 10,000sf two-story building adjacent to the University of Tampa campus.

“Why are you in this space when you don’t need a prime location?” he asked the owners whose business did not require foot traffic. Coticchio, who is also a licensed real estate professional, knew that he’d stumbled upon a diamond in the rough and an ideal parcel for adaptive reuse in a part of the city where vacant land is a thing of the past.

“Great eyes from Matt to spot this as the perfect building for our Architect-as-Developer model,” says Young. “Matt walked in and recognized the value. He has the mindset of looking for the right deal, negotiated it off-market, and had us into the new space in six months.” [Full story: Interstruct Tampa HQ, adaptive reuse project]

“I am incredibly proud of Matt developing our Tampa office, his leadership and entrepreneurial tenacity.  Our Tampa Team is one of the best in the business. I look forward to our continued growth and the opportunities that the next 10 years will bring.”