“Specializing” In Development

Mar 30, 2022 by Dominium

Want to know how to build one of Dominium’s affordable apartment communities?

Well, start by finding the property or land to acquire. Then make sure the financing is feasible. Don’t forget to meet with local government and other community stakeholders. Get your homes designed and your contractors organized. And – if it’s a new construction project – build the property from the ground up.

Simple, right? Not so much.

Every Dominium development is different, so it’s difficult to pin down exactly how long it takes to create one of our affordable communities. But Senior Vice President & Project Partner Jeff Huggett estimates it can take anywhere from three to five years to take a development from an ‘idea’ to a tangible, real-life affordable community that our residents can enjoy.

When Dominium started, our Development Partners and Associates managed and completed every single aspect of the process themselves. An arduous task – just ask any of our veteran developers. But as our Development function has grown, we’ve refined our processes, streamlined our operations, and hired people with expertise in a specific area of development.

In short, we have embraced “specialization.”

What is Specialization?

Specialization is “the process of concentrating on and becoming an expert in a particular subject or skill.” But what does that look like at Dominium? For starters, we’ve added several new teams and dozens of new team members to help aid the development process.

Here is what we mean: 

• Public Affairs: We now have Government Relations Associates in each of our regional offices who liaise with our partners in government, industry and philanthropy. This team, led by Paula Prahl, EVP & Chief Policy and Corporate Affairs Officer advocates for affordable housing on Dominium’s behalf, develops relationships with lawmakers, monitors government activity across the country, and helps prep the Development team for local approvals.
• Capital Markets: Last year, we created the Capital Markets team and brought on Senior Vice President of Capital Markets T.J. McElroy to bolster the financial side of our business. Through the Capital Markets team, we coordinate with a collection of financing partners to apply the most efficient financing to each of our developments. The team has laid the foundations for significant increases in capital sources, along with debt and equity structures we wouldn’t have considered in the past.
• Dominium Construction and Architectural Services (DCAS): This team, led by Partner, Chief Construction and Architecture Officer & Executive Vice President Scott Ewing, was formed in 2016. It is made up of specialists in general contracting, construction management and architecture, and is currently managing $1B in active construction value as well as providing architectural services for its redevelopment projects and developing prototypes of new construction units. DCAS ensures every development meets Dominium’s stringent design and construction standards and brings our affordable apartment communities to life.

The addition of these teams underlines the integrated nature of our organization. Dominium is not only a development company, property management company, construction company or affordable housing owner. It is all of these and each of these, working together to create and preserve affordable housing across the United States. Our integrated approach and the quality of affordable homes we produce is what makes us different from other providers of affordable housing – and what allows us to provide homes our residents can be proud of.

The Takeaways

By embracing specialization:

• We freed up our developers to focus on transactions, find more land, get more entitlements approved and ultimately expand our development pipeline.
• We expanded our team and created new roles for our Dominium talent. 
• We increased our capacity to bring more affordable homes to communities across the country.

You can find more information about our Development process, expertise and presence across the country here.