[ad_1]
OPPORTUNITIES— Pendelton Construction owner Damasae Pendelton said Thrive in Steubenville, the business incubator for low income and minority entrepreneurs funded by the city, gave him the tools he needed to start his own business and invest in his new community. — Linda Harris
STEUBENVILLE — To hear Damasae Pendelton tell it, it was love at first sight.
“During COVID, we traveled all over,” said Pendelton, owner of Pendelton Construction. “It was the opposite of what other people did. (Instead of staying home), we went out and adventured, we took advantage of the open highways and we came across (Veterans) Memorial Bridge and stumbled across Steubenville.”
Something about that first impression struck a chord within him.
“It reminded me so much of my hometown, I immediately fell in love. The fog was coming off the river, you could just see the light shining through,” he said. “You could just feel this town was alive at one point, and I knew this was the place to be, the place where I wanted to raise my family. I researched it, we looked at the demographics. I knew this was where I wanted to plant my feet, not only because I knew I had the skill to help bring it back to life, but I … found out some of the top schools in the country were here. I knew I wanted to be in the community.”
Pendelton, an eighth generation carpenter, had grown up in Haverhill, Mass., a small town on the Merrimack River. He said it’s an old, shoe mill city, “kind of like Steubenville, all the industries left.”
“The town was just deserted of its income, its infrastructure, what really brought people there,” he said. “So growing up, I got to witness the transformation from it being an abandoned, deserted forgotten town 40 miles north of Boston to what it is today by using the vacant shoe mills, converting them into housing, and shopping centers, and tearing down dilapidated homes, rebuilding infrastructure. I watched the market change from industrialized to kind of a warm suburb outside the city that’s great to raise children in.
“That’s what drew me to Steubenville, it’s kind of like stepping back in time and actually being part of the change — to me that was what was so important. There are tons of new businesses pouring into Steubenville, they’re taking so much action to revitalize parks and the infrastructure. It’s so amazing that now that I’m an adult and I can be part of that.”
They found a place to live and settled in to life in Steubenville, working odd jobs and saving every penny he could. “One morning I saw a story about Thrive in Steubenville, a business incubator, coming to town,” he recalls.
Thrive in Steubenville is the brainchild of Paramount Pursuits, a Pennsylvania consulting firm the city hired to help locals create and grow businesses. Its 12-month program is designed to help entrepreneurs build a foundation for entrepreneurship by teaching them how to create business and marketing plans, providing them with digital marketing assistance, helping them understand financials and identify and obtain funding and networking.
To be eligible, participants must be Steubenville residents and the business they operate or want to operate must be based within city limits. They also must meet income guidelines.
Once approved, participants are assigned mentors who meet with them twice a month. If they have questions, all they have to do is ask and if Paramount’s staff can’t answer, they’ll find a professional who can.
“I remember saying to myself, this is wonderful — my goal was to come here, settle my family and start a business. I said, ‘Look at this, this is God calling because they’re looking for entrepreneurs.”
After months of scrimping, he figured they’d saved enough money to get started as a limited liability company.
“Clearly it wasn’t enough, but at the time I thought it was,” he said. “I remembered seeing that story and reached out to Paramount Pursuits. Man, that was life-altering, they are such an amazing group of people dedicated day-in and day-out to helping entrepreneurs thrive.”
Over the course of the next year he learned how to be successful in business — everything from how to write a business plan to how to network with other business owners.
“I didn’t sit down, I didn’t breathe,” he said. “I didn’t realize … what was to come. By the end of the year I had three accountants and actually transitioned from an LLC to an S Corporation.”
Pendelton Construction specializes in building additions and renovations. All of the carpentry is done in house, but Pendelton said he’s made connections with some of the most skilled tradesmen in the area, “guys who are already here” with the same commitment to quality and brings them in on jobs as needed.
He said he tries to bring customers the most innovative technologies possible, like drones and lasers.
“We have drones that fly over that can tell you about your roof, your gutters — things guys normally do on a ladder, but now I’m able to bring the roof down to customers with drone technology.”
He said his company is just as innovative on the administrative side offering things like in-house financing “so people can have the opportunity to actually have that new bathroom they need.”
“We do construction on a personal level,” he said. “That’s one of the main reasons why people contact us. They understand we’re offering financing based on their situation, not a credit score. That makes a world of difference for some people, they don’t have to pull money out of their 401K to get a new bathroom. Sometimes allowing people to have five months to make payments can make all the difference.”
Business boomed and that first year, when he wasn’t renovating and adding on to private homes, he was helping flip houses — about 15 of them, in fact — for other investors trying to build a stronger community.
This year, he’s planning to do some of his own, with money he saved himself and investments by his grandfather, a veteran and a government retiree, as well as other family members who share his passion for rebuilding neighborhoods. He’s already purchased a couple rundown houses in neighborhoods that desperately need TLC, including one on Rosswell Avenue.
“We’re working on our first rental properties, targeting the forgotten neighborhoods — neighborhoods people invested into to collect rent but didn’t care,” he said. “Our goal is to provide quality housing for people who normally wouldn’t have a chance to have a nice home, and not only make it affordable, but to make it nice. That’s this year’s mission, to try to revitalize those types of neighborhoods.”
They’re already working on the Rosswell Avenue property and hope to have it ready to rent out this summer. Pendelton said it was an illegal, two-unit apartment when he purchased it. When it’s done, it will be three bedrooms, 1.5 baths with a main floor laundry.
“Those are the most expensive properties to invest in because they’ve been so neglected,” he pointed out. “In the past people would buy them, get as much money out and put as little in as they could. We’re doing the opposite. I want to preserve neighborhoods, to try to get people who’ve lived here all their life to stay here.”
The youngest of five children, Pendelton said his mother worked hard to get her family out of low-income housing, taking about any job she could find until she became a CNA, then an LPN and, eventually, a registered nurse.
“Growing up, we lived in houses that had roaches coming up the wall,” he said. “To see my mother go from that to home ownership, that’s what drives me as an individual, to be able to see that type of growth. Even if it’s not the best of neighborhoods, there are people out there like my mother, working their butt off and all they want to do is come home to a nice home.” And then, when his family first settled in Steubenville, Pendelton said he inadvertently rented from a slum lord who didn’t willingly do anything about the vermin, including bed bugs, infesting his properties. While he did battle with the landlord to make it livable, “I noticed time and again, I couldn’t believe the conditions he would rent his houses out in.”
“We want to be able to provide better than that,” he said. “I know people can’t pay thousands of dollars a month, but it can still be clean and they can feel good about living there. That’s this year’s mission, to try to revitalize those types of neighborhoods.”
He’s set a lofty goal: His plan is to revitalize five properties each year for the next 10 years.
“We’ll still continue to work on other peoples’ properties, but this year we’ve taken on own properties. We’re fixing them up, the goal is to make them accessible to people on Section 8 and give them quality … quality countertops, flooring choices, ceiling fans — things people don’t normally put in because they assume they’ll get torn out. We try to choose things with lifetime warranties, we do our due diligence when we’re buying and picking materials. Our goal is to try and bring up the value of the neighborhoods.
“It’s a long shot and a really big gamble, but we’re not in it for the money. We’re in it for the revitalization of neighborhoods. To be able to have someone open the door to one of our properties and say, ‘Wow, it’s beautiful — I can’t believe it’s my home’ … that’s what we’re here for, to give people a fresh start. Having a home you can come home to that’s truly yours makes all the difference in people’s lives.”
[ad_2]
Source link