Frank Mondino, former area director of Keepmoat, heads a trio of senior appointments by Placefirst Construction, the construction subsidiary of Placefirst, to drive the company’s growth plan.
The award-winning Manchester-based developer, which began life refurbishing derelict terraced properties in small northern towns, now benefits from a strong national pipeline of development sites that will enable the company to build 4,000 homes for market rent by 2022.
Placefirst Construction is the in-house construction arm of the business and currently acts as the principal contractor for all of the company’s developments. The growth plan will see Placefirst Construction turnover grow from £28m in 2018 to £110m by 2020.
Charged with delivering that growth will be Frank Mondino, former North West area managing director of Keepmoat Regeneration, where he managed a development portfolio worth almost £100m and a 1200-strong workforce, including subcontractors.
During 22 years at Keepmoat Regeneration and its predecessor Bramall Construction, Frank worked across several sectors including residential and commercial, with achievements centred around housing.
Typically delivering around 500 residential units annually within a mix of tenures including rented and open market sale, retirement and supported housing, alongside refurbishment and maintenance of around 5,000 properties, across the North West of England for both private and social landlords.
He will take up the newly created post of managing director of Placefirst Construction, joining an already established and high quality senior team.
Joining Frank at Placefirst Construction are commercial director Pete Adams and senior technical manager, Johnson Mulk.
Pete was formerly commercial manager at Wates, where he played a key role in major schemes such as £60m high-spec student accommodation at Circle Square, Manchester for Select Property Group and an £82m project to deliver 1500 homes and apartments. Prior to his time at Wates, Pete held the same post at Galliford Try Partnerships having been regional chief quantity surveyor with Lovell Partnerships.
Completing the three senior arrivals at Placefirst Construction is Johnson Mulk, formerly technical manager at Prospect (GB) Ltd, where he was solely responsible for the technical performance of the business and specialised in key areas of expertise including, planning, surveying, civil infrastructure, structural engineering and the delivery of feasibility reports on brownfield and greenfield sites.
Frank will head a team of 21 specialists in the construction division of Placefirst, forming a key element of a total workforce of 44.
Placefirst has existing and occupied rental residential schemes in Accrington, Lancs, Welsh Streets, Liverpool, West End One and West End Two, Morecambe, Cross Heath Grove, Leeds and The Green, Hartlepool.
The firm’s secured pipeline of housing developments sites include Bolton, County Durham, Sheffield, Morecambe and Wolverhampton.
With more than 1500 Placefirst residents, the business has 693 houses built or under construction and has a land pipeline of 2,085 units.
David Smith-Milne, managing director and founder of Placefirst, said: “The essential and additional skills and invaluable experience of Frank, Johnson and Pete will help our excellent construction team to realise our ambition of doubling our housing output in just two years thanks to a strong and growing pipeline of projects in the private rented sector of the North and Midlands.”
