In 1994, Founder and Managing Director Nic De Luca left a well-paying job with one of Australia’s major construction firms to follow a dream of running his own construction and development business with a clear focus on people and relationships. With a background in design management and estimating, combined with the hands on experience gained in helping his immigrant parents run the family concrete business, De Luca Properties was formed. The mid 90’s was a time where design and construction (D&C) was coming of age in major projects and Nic found a niche market for the use of D&C in the smaller Housing Commission market. With the encouragement of then Minister for Public Works and Housing, the late Terry Mackenroth, Nic won his first project for De Luca Properties, 12 Seniors Apartments at Duke Street Kangaroo Point. Armed with a mobile phone and fax machine, and working from a home office, Nic was owner, manager, foreman and labourer on that project whilst he mapped out his next steps.

With the passing of his immigrant father who was of great support and assistance in his first year, Nic was even more determined to create his own family legacy. His first project now a success, Nic continued to pursue and deliver house and land packages for the Department of Public Works and Housing under the design and construction model. Projects were delivered in Brisbane, Logan, the Gold and Sunshine Coasts with a small hands-on and nimble team of four. With cash flow and a balance sheet starting to grow, Nic also began exploring development opportunities and found a complimentary market in delivering small townhouse developments in Brisbane’s East. During this period, Nic successfully developed many small townhouse projects targeted at the owner occupier market whilst gaining a greater appreciation of the multi-disciplined construction and development market.

A change in Government in the late 90’s saw the delivery of Public Housing put on hold which presented a huge risk to De Luca Properties. Nic had to quickly adapt and started to explore alternate markets and industrial buildings caught his attention. It was an era where industrial buildings were called “sheds” and were traditionally metal clad structures. Through a mutual friend, Nic was introduced to the late John Smallwood who worked for Silvio Pradella and who was developing the now renowned Metroplex on Gateway estate at Murarrie. It was a time where the industrial market was depressed, and land sales were near impossible. Nic was presented an offer to buy a parcel of land in Metroplex on the proviso that he commenced construction of a building immediately to kick off part of the estate. With developers not speculating at the time, Nic took up the challenge and commenced construction of a speculative 2700m2 office / warehouse. He took guidance from his agents and built a state of the art building which was leased to BioMerieux, an international company, which before completion was sold for a record yield at the time of 8.25%! As recognition for Nic’s courage, quality and professionalism, Nic secured a significant land holding within the estate on which to continue his developments. Over the preceding eight years, De Luca Properties continued to develop and construct industrial buildings for national and international companies like Le Tourneau (now Komatsu), Adidas, Inoxcrom and Cerebos to name a few. In the late 2000’s, the Goodman Group secured the last stage of Metrpolex from Silvio and started to develop larger, specialised buildings for their tenants. By this time Deluca had developed a significant portfolio of quality buildings within the estate and were approached by Goodman to build for them. Deluca took on the construction of two major Goodman projects, one for Armaguard and one for NHP Electrical which started a relationship that continues today with the Goodman Group. The successful delivery of these projects raised Nic’s interest in third party construction work and growth in that part of his business. Nic then went on to plan and implement the systems and people he needed to be able to successfully service his development and construction businesses.

Over a coffee and chat on Good Friday in 2004, Nic struck a handshake deal with Max Muller of Sword Holdings to buy 10Ha of land at Wacol for $24M, his largest acquisition by far and one which would prove pivotal to his journey. Deluca’s extensive experience and reputation gained in the Metroplex estate, coupled with this strategic site in the Western corridor of Brisbane became of great attraction to Stockland, who were looking to press a stake in the Brisbane industrial market which at the time was predominately controlled by private developers. After some swift negotiations, Nic and Max struck a development agreement with Stockland to deliver a $60M state of the art industrial estate to be known as Interchange at Wacol. A 15,000m2 lease deal was then struck with Western Star trucks to kick off the estate and grow the relationship with Stockland. Deluca were firmly in the sights of the institutional players from Sydney.

Whilst busily developing the Stockland joint venture, Nic was keen to continue to grow the Deluca identity and its skill in developing business parks. In 2005 Nic purchased a strategic site from the Stockwell Group in Logan to be branded Campus Business Park. After subdividing the site into 8 lots, Deluca went on to speculate and purpose build first class commercial and industrial buildings for  organisations like Queensland Health, Surgical Equipment Supplies and Soka Gagi to name a few.

After a chance meeting with an executive of the newly formed Brisbane Airport Corporation at a rugby match in early 2006, Deluca were successfully included in their construction tender panel for airport works. A growing new domestic and international airport presented much opportunity for Deluca at the time which was capitalised on quickly with their first D&C project for FedEx. Numerous warehouse and logistics projects followed, many for major national and international organisations like Australian Air Express, Qantas and Menzies.

With Deluca maintaining a strong presence at the Airport in the mid 2000’s, a significant tender opportunity presented itself on airport land for a joint venture between Pearson Property Group and Ash Morgan Winthrop. The Da Vinci Precinct was to become the first privately developed business park within the airport precinct and Deluca were an obvious fit to deliver it given their extensive experience in delivering business parks outside of the airport, coupled with their experience and relationship with BAC. The $30M project was to become Deluca’s largest in their 13-year history and one which further cemented their reputation as a builder of choice for industrial and commercial offerings. This coupled with their continuing experience in developing business parks formed the early structure and foundations of Deluca today.

Whilst continuing to expand the successful relationship with Stockland formed in 2004 at both Wacol and Northlakes, the global financial crisis was starting to take effect in Australia and many of the country’s institutional players were looking to divest of non-core assets. For Stockland, one of these was a 27Ha parcel of land at Narangba, directly opposite their flag ship Northlakes Estate. For Deluca and Sword, it presented an opportunity to be counter cyclical and buy whilst others were selling, taking a long-term position. The partners struck another quick deal with Stockland taking the significant holding off their balance sheet. As the GFC set in and with many of his competitors scrambling for work, Nic decided to reinvest in his business and developments and started a significant $13M subdivision of the Narangba land which was branded Interchange, continuing on from the success of Interchange at Wacol years before. With subdivision works underway and many other developers’ projects stalling, leasing opportunity appeared with multinational companies Apex Roofing, Abra Steel and Bunnings. The Bunnings deal was to become the beginning of one of the companies most successful and enduring relationships which would help set a path into the retail and bulky goods sector.

After successfully developing and building trade centres for Bunnings at Narangba and Raceview, Deluca started to explore construction opportunities with the company which at the time had a relatively low profile in Queensland. This was a strategic move by Deluca, driven by the fact that the majority of builders at the time were being distracted by the “Building the Education Revolution” stimulus package delivered by the Government, missing sitting opportunities such as Bunnings. The journey began with an apprenticeship with Deluca being awarded a small but fast refurbishment of a former Sam’s warehouse in Rockhampton. Following from this successful project, a medium format store in Airlie Beach was the company’s first new retail Bunnings project in Queensland. Like all projects, it came with its challenges and Deluca made it happen on time and within budget. From then on, the projects grew in size and number, and the relationship strengthened to successfully deliver over 20 stores throughout Queensland and Northern NSW. Over the years, Deluca has both developed and built over 300,000m2 of Bunnings stores totaling over $350M, always meeting their tight time frames and high-quality expectations.

With Industrial, Commercial and Retail being the main development and construction focus for the last decade, an opportunity arose to deliver the largest residential project on the Sunshine Coast at the time for Sword Holdings. The 139-unit resort style apartment project at Lake Kawana was a bold move by the developer, taking advantage of a depressed construction market. It was successfully delivered in just 52 weeks by Deluca. Three tower cranes shone across the Sunshine Coast skyline with Deluca on them, the companies bold first foray into the multi residential market.

Having now built experience in the multi residential arena with the Lake Kawana project, Nic was keen to expand this into his development division. Making the decision at the time that the business was not going to pursue third party residential construction works due to their complexity and long term liability, Nic was keen to create a recognised builder / developer brand in the residential apartment space. Being new to the sector, Bulimba, an evolving riverside suburb in Brisbane was selected as the place to showcase Deluca’s apartment ability, with its first project launched in 2013. Situated on a prime site adjoining Memorial Park, Parkside was launched and became a huge success. With owner occupiers the main target, enabled Deluca the ability to provide a higher level of product compared to other competitors in the marketplace.

With Parkside well under construction and selling strongly, an opportunity came to acquire a prime riverfront site from Watpac who were looking to exit the development market. The acquisition came with approvals and pre-sales and Deluca went on to develop the luxury riverfront apartment and adjoining marina further cementing its footprint in the Bulimba residential market.

Having been operating for just over 20 years, the company had achieved a lot and participated in wide and varying markets as a builder, developer and investor. However, with this diversification came confusion, mainly bought about by the then company name, De Luca Properties. Whilst having built near $1BN worth of projects, it found that a lot of the property market was not aware of the organisations construction ability and saw the company more as a property developer. The decision was therefore made to rebrand the business to a name which was not property specific and Deluca Corporation was born – a diversified construction and property organisation. With a new name came a new brand and brand identity. Our brand make-up was articulated via INSPIRE – Innovation / Nimble / Sustainable / Passionate / Integrity / Respect / Empowerment.  Our construction and development skills were clearly articulated, and our purpose was set in stone – WE INSPIRE PEOPLE TO MAKE IT HAPPEN – exactly what we had been doing for the two decades prior.

Having steadily built and grown the business for over 20 years, these three years saw further growth and diversification across the business units with many significant milestone projects. Our largest warehouse at the time was secured and delivered for then new client, Frasers Property, a 35,000m2 warehouse at Yatala. A successful move into the retail sector was made with a new Woolworths at Wynnum being delivered for CBIC and the $30M redevelopment of the Burpengary Plaza for Chin Hong. Expansion into the bulky goods space took place with Deluca delivering 3 major projects for Primewest at Northlakes along with the Skygate Centre for Brisbane Airport Corporation. Our Bunnings relationship continued to grow with the delivery of the $30M Bunnings warehouse at Keperra and development of Bunnings stores in Kingaroy and
Lawnton. All of this combined with our largest residential project to date, the
$50M East Park Bulimba development topped off three busy years for the group.

After 25 years of continued growth and development, it was time to stop, reflect and celebrate. An intimate celebration was held riverside at Howard Smith Wharves with family, staff and stakeholders. Stakeholders who have spanned decades joined in the celebrations. Along with the celebrations, projects continued to be delivered for key Clients like Hitachi, Fife Captial , Frasers, Goodman, Amazon, 7-Eleven, Caltex, United, Starbucks, Bridgestone and of course Bunnings.

The Deluca today has the same DNA as the Deluca of 1994. With Founder and Managing Director Nic De Luca still at the helm, the company is entering the next decade with a strong balance sheet, an amazing team, enduring relationships and most importantly, enthusiasm and passion. To Nic the last 28 years have been his apprenticeship and the next 25 years present endless opportunity to tune his craft. As always, the company remains nimble in its approach with no specific destination, because for Deluca, success is a journey not a destination. The Journey continues…