By Brian Wright O’Connor
Twenty-five years ago, Juan Carlos Chavez arrived in New York City from the Dominican Republic. Just 16 years old, he joined his cab-driving father in Harlem and found work in a local auto-body shop, putting in long hours to support the household and send money home.
A quarter century later, Chavez, married and the father of five, owns his own business in Boston – Moreno Auto Collision in Roslindale – as well as real estate and rental property here in the U.S. and the D.R.
For Chavez, “El “Sueno Americano” is more than a dream – it’s reality. Or close to it.
The 41-year-old entrepreneur, having secured a solid business reputation, is poised to create generational wealth by demolishing the low-slung concrete garage housing his auto-body shop and building six high-end housing units. And then retire from the literal and figurative grind of reshaping and restoring battered car bodies to pristine condition.
“This is a hard job,” said Chavez during an interview in the cramped loft office perched over his Washington Street garage floor. “I had surgery two years ago for a compressed disc and now I can’t do the job the same way I did before.”
Chavez, mustachioed and handsome, looking younger than his years, nodded his head towards the cars parked tighter than a bachata dance floor on the concrete below. “It’s time to move on.”
The next few months will determine what exactly Chavez is moving on to.
An initial design to build seven three-bedroom units with a roof-deck, two exterior staircases and two commercial spaces on the ground floor went before neighbors and the Zoning Board of Appeals. Abutters and board members suggested he add parking and lose the roof-deck and stairs. Chavez listened and recently presented his new plans at a community meeting for six units with off-street parking and an elevator.
“I’ve been successful here because I’ve taken the time to maintain my property to keep peace with the neighbors,” said Chavez, pointing to landscaping touches like planters and the property’s meticulous upkeep. “Of course I responded to their suggestions.”
The 3,150-square-foot lot, at the corner of Washington Street and Bexley Road just north of Roslindale Square, currently has two storefronts facing the main thoroughfare – one serving the auto-body shop, the other a small retail store. Chavez bought the structure, dating from 1919, in 2009, and updated it with two-tone brick facing to make the streetscape more appealing.
The new 9,232-square-foot building, with a sleek but understated design, would rise four stories and include six residential units, each about 1,000 square feet. Chavez proposes to add parking to the rear of the building accessible by a driveway off Bexley Road. Installing a new curb on the street to replace the existing entrance to the double garage doors would add three on-street parking spots for the neighborhood.
Looking ahead to approval and groundbreaking, he credited his development team for making the process go smoothly. “You have to find the right people. Your lawyer, your architect, your contractor. In order to get something done in this country, it’s not just what you do, it’s the people you know.”
In Chavez’s office, another project – this one from his homeland – is displayed on a roll-out poster leaning against his wall: Two luxury beach units in Puerto Plata, on the D.R.’s north coast, located in one of the Caribbean’s most-visited resorts.
Chavez, who visits the Dominican Republic once or twice a year, remains close to family and friends in his old neighborhood in Cotui, just north of the capital city of Santiago.
He grew up there with eight siblings, attended local schools and became an accomplished martial arts student as well as an able “caballero,” riding horses on a cousin’s farm in the countryside.
Cotui, known as the rice capital of the D.R., is also home to the deep springs providing water to Santiago. It was a good place to grow up but not one that offered many job prospects to an ambitious and athletic young man.
Moving to Manhattan, he stayed with his father for just a year and decided to move to Boston after visiting his best friend from Cotui, who by then was living in Roslindale, only a few blocks from the shop where he recounted his journey to an El Mundo reporter.
It wasn’t hard for a skilled auto-body sculptor to find work in the Hub. He bounced around from shop to shop in Roxbury, Dorchester, Hyde Park and Mattapan, further honing his skills, until finally renting a space to work for his own clients.
That was in 1999, three years after landing in the U.S. “It was Hubert Rivera, who owned Greenville Auto Body on Columbus Avenue in Roxbury, who gave me a chance,” said Chavez. “I had worked at his shop for someone else but offered to help him out when everyone was leaving to spend December in Puerto Rico or the D.R. He liked my work and offered me my own space – a chance to finally work for myself.”
Chavez paused while remembering the moment. “He looked me directly in the eyes and said, ‘When I was young, I started out just like you.’ And with that, I was on my own. And I’ve never looked back.”
Before buying the existing building and business in Roslindale, Chavez rented a body shop on lower Blue Hill Avenue near Dudley Street for five years while operating another one in Hyde Park. “I learned from many people along the way. I had a lot of support,” he said. “People like Daniel Charles, a Haitian guy who owned a shop on Norfolk Street in Mattapan. Like me, he came from a poor country, and, like me, believed in helping others. I think it’s ridiculous that differences like where you come from or the color of your skin are used to divide people. To me, people are all the same.”
Chavez’s main avenue of helping others these days is through a family foundation, “Latidos del Amor,” which he established with his wife in 2014. They have channeled tens of thousands of dollars collected from his own funds, donations and gala events to cancer research in the U.S. and to hospitals and needy families in the Dominican Republic.
“That’s what it’s all about,” said Chavez before going back to answering client calls. “Hard work. Respect the customer. Be a good boss. And always try to give back.”
