Chanda Smart, CEO, OnyxGroup Brokerage & Development
Chanda Smart, CEO of OnyxGroup, is making waves as an upstart developer in Boston. A Black-owned business, OnyxGroup started from scratch and asserted itself successfully in a crowded field. Moving from success to success, the company now has its sights set beyond Boston, to places like Foxboro, Smart told Invest:.
What have been some of the significant achievements and milestones over the past year for OnyxGroup?
OnyxGroup is a Boston-based, Black-woman-owned and operated development and brokerage company. We started in April 2021 as a brokerage and pivoted later that year into development. We started by responding to a public request for proposal, which was Cass Crossing. In replying to the request for proposal, we had no idea what the heck we were doing, but we thought, how hard could it be? In four months, we put together our development team: architect, landscaper, financial cap stack. Mind you, this was all without ever having seen someone do this before. It was literally like coming to America, where we said we are going to get into the development field. So, what’s our first step? We need to find a property. The Boston Planning & Development Agency has a website. We looked at the map and we pointed right at Cass Crossing. Then we said, OK, there we go. We decided to submit, and we beat out the second-largest nonprofit in Massachusetts, which is Madison Park Development Corporation. We beat them. Our proposal came in second, behind the Planning Office of Urban Affairs. But we were amazed.
As a result, the dynamic women of Peabody Properties, Karen Fish Will and Melissa Fish Crane called us up and said, you ladies got chutzpah, and we are really impressed that you guys put the team and proposal together and that you were able to do it for a fraction of the price. We did it for $5,000 and usually the architect alone would charge you $50,000. They understood the time, the money, the association that it was going to take to really be a formidable developer. They said to us: go do this again – duplicate this process – and we are going to co develop with you. This was great, because it was essentially a big brother going to the park with us and fighting a bully, the bully being the finances and the capital stack that was required to be a developer. And that’s what we did. We won the RFP for Foxboro. We broke ground, we have a structure going up, and we should be done in a year and a half. The project consists of 100% senior-affordable units here. From where we started to that moment of breaking ground was surreal.
How important is collaboration in moving the company forward?
Our founding principles and our operation are based on collaboration. We realize that development in Boston, right now as we know it, requires all hands-on deck. That is our city, our state, our local community stakeholders, our corporate partners, our nonprofits. Development should not occur by one person alone. That is our spirit.
Right now, the other project we are working on is Parcel Three (P3) in Roxbury. P3 is the last largest parcel in Roxbury. It consists of 7.7 acres. What’s really interesting, and what I love about it, is that, as a little girl, I used to walk by this place. I’m going to tell you a really quick story: In the Black community, we had this thing that, when we were little, we had to come home when the streetlights came on. I stayed up late one night because I wanted to play ball, so I was running one day, coming home about 10 minutes before the streetlights came on. My little legs couldn’t carry me fast enough. I knew I was going to get in trouble, so I was crying. And then a nun – it felt like she descended from heaven even though she didn’t – walked across the field and asked me why I was crying. I said, “Because I’m going to be late and I’m going to get in trouble.” The nun then literally walked me to my house.
Now, why is that important? Because the nun was in the back of this very parcel, P3, that I was walking by. And she brought me home and literally saved my life, I feel. This development is so significant for me because I used to walk by this field all the time while I lived with my great-grandmother. It’s come full circle in that we’re now the co-developers of this parcel. The development team is all Black and Brown companies. That is the essence and true spirit of collaboration.
What additional thoughts would you like to share?
Access changes lives. Meeting the right person, having the right conversation changes lives. It gets discouraging when we go to places and we see our counterparts make billion-dollar deals on the back of a napkin. Meanwhile, we have so many barriers in the way of seeing our developmental ideas and projects come to reality. It really is about access.
