If you ask Laurel Street CEO Dionne Nelson the meaning of home, her mind will drift to her great-grandmother Patsy Albert's house on Laurel Street, in Columbia, South Carolina.
“When I think about why I do what I do, or what I believe it should look like, live like, feel like, I go back to that same place,” Dionne said. “She was first-generation free [from slavery] and was a housekeeper, but she owned a house, knew her neighbors, and walked to the corner store — it was a community. She had the ability to live in a quality place like we all deserve.”
Laurel Street, a TD Bank Commercial Real Estate client based in Charlotte, North Carolina, is a mixed-income developer that builds high-quality communities focused on housing affordability and ensuring that everyone can afford a place to call home. Dionne started Laurel Street in 2011, and the company concentrates on multifamily residential communities across the Southeast.
“We’ve grown relatively dramatically — we started out doing two or three new developments a year, and today we do about six, with anywhere from 700 to 1,000 new construction units per year," she said. "We started with a team of three, and now it’s a team of 23, and we now own our property management operator, which is 100-plus people across 45-plus properties.”
A storied and prestigious past
Dionne pulled all her knowledge from her childhood and her prestigious career into building Laurel Street. She grew up with parents who were teachers, a grandfather who owned a dry-cleaning business in the Bronx, as well as an uncle who ran a real estate business and multiple stores.
While other students were working in dining halls or grocery stores in college, Dionne was selling property with her real estate license. After earning a bachelor's degree from Spelman College and an MBA from Harvard University, she worked at several prestigious financial services and consulting firms. But she was still searching for true purpose in her professional life.
Finding that purpose came about in an unexpected way. After the 2008 recession, she reached a fork in the road when her employer announced they were exiting development in 2010. Dionne decided to start her own business, partially to ensure she could protect and employ her team in a very uncertain real estate environment.
“Laurel Street came as a reaction to what was happening in the world, the economy, and me recognizing I had an opportunity to create something of my own that was dedicated to the work and my passion around housing affordability,” she said.
Building the right relationships with a bank and community
Growing up, an uncle always advised Dionne that, “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.”
“It’s not that all opportunities come through pure relationships. You have to do the work. You have to have a plan. But you also have to build relationships with people who help you achieve the plan,” Dionne said. “I consider my TD Bank friends as part of that relationship network.”
She said working with TD has helped her answer questions like, “How can I achieve this plan? How can I grow? What are your financial expectations of my business? How can a bank help me achieve those expectations?”
Dionne noted that not everyone truly understands what her business does, as the housing affordability sector has its own unique features and complexities.
“Some bankers don’t really understand what Laurel Street does and how we do our work… they want to put us in a bucket with market-rate developers or be transactional," she explained. "The difference I found was that TD Bank was willing to look across a number of different platforms. They took the time to get to know Laurel Street and understand our collective needs and engage with us in different ways.
“TD built relationships across what are, at most banks, very different silos, and tried to bring us products and services that align with what we really do and how we can be successful,” Dionne said. "TD has an ongoing focus on community and ensuring everyone has equitable access to basic human necessities are other reasons we continue to work with them."
“At TD, we are committed to building strong, lasting relationships with our clients and supporting their visions for more inclusive, affordable communities,” said Hugh Allen Head of Commercial Real Estate, TD Bank. “Our relationship with Dionne and the Laurel Street team reflects our core values of understanding our clients’ unique needs, collaborating across teams, and working together to make a meaningful impact. We are proud to support Dionne and her team as they create opportunities that drive positive change in the communities we both serve.”
Dionne also attributes a large part of her success as a businesswoman and entrepreneur to her service on a variety of boards of directors, including Cousins Properties, Charlotte Executive Leadership Council (CELC) and the Low Income Investment Fund (LIIF); however, it's her work as a director for the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond-Charlotte branch that has given her a new appreciation for the way in which the financial sector operates. In her role, she serves as one of the region's six businesses in different industries that provides insights, perspectives and outlooks to help the Federal Reserve understand what is going on in local economies to help inform interest rate decisions.
"I learn a lot from those meetings, and I enjoy the opportunity to contribute to the perspective," she said.
Advice to those ready to start a business
Dionne shared her insights based on the lessons she learned throughout her professional life for those considering starting a business.
She recommended finding friends, contacts and relationships that will help distinguish between “good” and “not so good” business ideas; how you’ll finance your dreams; and what your Plan B might be if your plans don’t work out.
"Business owners need to surround themselves with people to help them accomplish what they’re meant to do," she said. "If you put it all on yourself, it's hard to achieve."
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