About
A general contractor with the instincts of a developer.
Practice
Rome Building & Development is a New Jersey commercial general contractor and real estate developer working on ground-up retail, multi-family, industrial, and mixed-use projects in the $10M–$25M range. We deliver as design-build, fee development partner, or pure GC.
The work is run by principals who have built and developed. That means the person at the table during pre-construction is the same person walking the site at framing, the same person signing off on final close-out. No layered account management—just direct execution and a short line back to ownership.
Rome serves Central and Northern New Jersey out of Passaic, and takes on out-of-region work where it fits. Most of our relationships are repeat: developers and capital partners who have a site, a deal, or a building, and want a builder who treats the schedule and the budget the way they would.
Founder
Michael Goras
Founder & Principal
For Michael Goras, building comes down to integrity and trust. A handshake should mean what it says, a budget should hold, and the people who hire a contractor should never have to wonder whether they're being dealt with straight. He founded Rome Building & Development to work exactly that way—directly, accountably, and with the trades he trusts.
His career in construction began at 21, straight out of college, when he started a millwork company that completed jobs for some of the largest developers and contractors in New Jersey. The work taught him the trade from the ground up and drew him into the purchasing side of the business, where he'd spend the next chapter of his career.
He led the purchasing arm at Meridia Capodagli Development, one of the state's prominent developers and contractors, then headed purchasing for Adoni Properties and later March Construction. He went on to serve as head of purchasing and business development at Deugen Development—learning, at every stop, how the best projects are bought, built, and delivered.
Rome Building & Development is the culmination of that path: a firm built on everything those years taught him, and on the conviction that the work, the price, and the word should all still hold up long after the job is done.
Geography
Headquartered in Passaic. Active across New Jersey.
Most of our work sits in Central and Northern New Jersey, with an active operating radius into Bergen, Passaic, Hudson, Essex, and Morris counties. We take on out-of-region projects selectively when the fit is right.