JULIAN DASH, shown here before testifying on an energy bill last week at the State House, has started a development company with his brother, Gordon, to create affordable housing and commercial space that uses renewable energy.
COMPANY PROFILE
Dash Development
OWNERS: Julian and Gordon Dash
TYPE OF BUSINESS: Development firm incorporating renewable energy into its projects.
LOCATION: Providence
EMPLOYEES: 2
YEAR FOUNDED: 2005
ANNUAL REVENUE: NA
Brothers seek to bring renewable energy into urban renewal projects
Rhode Island's Market Has Changed. Developers, Builders, Investors and Sellers Must Change With It.
By Emilio DiSpirito IV License Partner | Engel & Völkers Oceanside Leader | The DiSpirito…
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With Dash Development’s first project, brothers Julian and Gordon Dash are looking to fill a gap – literally and figuratively.
The project, at 1040 Broad St. in Providence, is taking a vacant lot in the city’s South Side and turning it into a mixed-use, affordably priced development. But the project also looks to tackle the issue of energy affordability that often drains a family’s bank account, said Julian Dash.
The development, which includes three single-family homes and five retail spaces, will use solar power. Dash said he and his brother see alternative, cheaper forms of energy as a way to keep housing, aimed at low- and moderate-income households, affordable throughout the time people live in the unit. And that, in turn, can help give people more discretionary spending to put toward their community and families’ enrichment, he said.
“If we can find a way to get them into a home from day one that’s affordable and then maintain its affordability by maintaining a level of utility costs … we will start to see a chain reaction,” Dash said.
Dash Development was a way for the native Providence brothers to pool their interests and skills, Dash said.
Gordon, 27, received a master’s degree in renewable energy and has been interested in promoting the use of wind and solar power.
Julian, 28, has a bachelor’s degree in international finance and an MBA. His education led to a job as finance director for a developer that was building 150 homes in Baltimore.
Shortly thereafter, he began working on the development side of the company.
Now Julian is back in his native Providence, working as real estate director of The Plant, a project by Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse located near the firm’s Rising Sun Mills redevelopment project. Dash’s job involves working with the developer to fill the 30 artist spaces and commercial components of the project.
Dash said projects such as these are just what the city needs. Rather than segregating the housing for people of different incomes, Dash said, communities thrive when they include a mix of incomes. In an ideal development, Dash said, people of low, moderate and higher incomes would live with one another.
This not only helps the neighborhood, he said, but could also give inspiration to people growing up in the environment. “They can maybe understand that the world is a really large place, and they can grow up to be whoever or whatever they want,” he said.
The project at 1040 Broad St., for which construction is slated to commence in coming months, will be a litmus test for Dash Development’s ideas. Already, the brothers have begun to look for spaces where renewable energy can best be utilized.
Aside from the solar power that Dash Development is using in urban settings, Dash said that the company is identifying spaces that would be suited for wind-powered developments. Most of them, he said, would be located in more suburban settings.
The two brothers are so committed to this kind of work that they recently formed a second company called Ocean State Wind with Robert Chew of SolarWrights, an “Earth-friendly” energy contractor. They’re now looking for first-round funding for the startup, Dash said.
Meanwhile, the Broad Street project will not only promote renewable energy and affordable housing, but it will help another area of the market, he said – Broad Street businesses.
The commercial corridor is thriving, he said, but owners have been hit not only with rising energy costs, but also with rents that have more than doubled in recent years.
Building affordable housing with renewable energy has been costly, adding nearly $25,000 in expected costs to the Broad Street project, Dash said. However, the idea has been a long time coming, and Dash said that he encourages more firms to tackle the issue.
“At some point, somebody was going to do something,” Dash said. “We’re one of the early movers to do something. But at some point, projects like this are … going to be coming on line in a much grander fashion.”
