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Sabino Fogliano, to the construc- tion sites where he built residential homes. When she was 17, she joined his business as a part-timer. “I was always working there during time off from school, holidays, summers,” says Fogliano. “I guess I was a very low-paid intern.”
Graduating from Fordham University with a double major in communications and French, Fogliano considered pursuing her interests in architecture and interior design. But when she graduated, the pull of working in her father’s business proved too strong, so she decided to join him full-time in 1983.
It was in 1988, when her father re- tired, that Fogliano formed her origi- nal company, MacQuesten General Contracting, in Mount Vernon, where she continued to serve many of the clients she’d gotten to know at his firm. By the early 1990s, she began developing properties in the Bronx that her father’s company owned. Aware that there was a shortage of affordable housing, she embarked on an existing 63-unit project at Hughes Avenue Crescent in the Bronx that she completed in 1996. By 2003, she had formed her current companies.
Fogliano started out with an in- sider’s knowledge of the business, but she still had many obstacles to overcome, such as the discomfort some business associates felt work- ing with a female developer.
“She is a woman in an industry with a dearth of women,” says Joseph Apicella, who joined MacQuesten Development last year as managing director of development after 20 years at Cappelli Enterprises, a developer of properties such as The Ritz- Carlton, Westchester in White Plains. Fogliano’s innate understanding of when to show strength and when to build others up has helped her get things done, he says.
She is also persuasive. Apicella remembers one recent meeting in which Fogliano needed government officials to give her the go-ahead for an affordable-housing project. She spoke with unflappable confidence about how it would benefit needy people in the community, he recalls.
“I’ll never forget watching her performance that day,” he says. “She won everyone over.”
Fogliano also has to contend with
the many vexing situations that are part of the job for any developer. One of her most difficult challenges came while her company was build- ing Claremont Park Apartments, on a site between Webster Avenue and Clay Avenue in the Bronx, she says. After breaking ground on the 98-unit apartment complex, her team dis- covered the sloping terrain included
not for the faint of heart.” Nevertheless, Fogliano’s team was
able to finish the project, which in- cludes a daycare center and other ame- nities, in December 2007. “I always see completion—no excuses,” she says.
The local business community has been taking note of what she’s ac- complishing. In 2014, Fogliano was named Developer of the Year by the
Fogliano started out with an insider’s knowledge of the business, but she still had many obstacles to overcome, such as the discomfort some business associates felt working with a female developer.
both bedrock and water—features not usually seen at one location.
To continue the project, they had to build a costly 300-foot-long, 30-foot-high retaining wall on both avenues. Pulling that off required Fogliano to break the bad news about the site to her bank and an investor—and to pour more of her own money into the project. “You have to be very transparent with people,” says Fogliano of her ap- proach to dealing with such crises. “There’s no hiding. This business is
New York Housing Conference and the National Housing Conference. The Business Council of Westchester selected her for its Women in Busi- ness Success Award in 2015.
Family, Food, and Inspiration
Outside of work, Fogliano spends a lot of time with family and friends. She and her husband, Joseph Breda, a former x-ray technician who is now a special-projects manager at MacQuesten Development, live a
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