July 31, 2023

Two days after Hani Shafai told his parents he was leaving his homeland for the United States, he was gone.

“I did not let them know I was leaving until I’d bought my tickets and had my visa,” he said. “It was tough on them. It was a sudden deal.”

The man who would go on to help shape the face of the modern Rapid City region was 19 at the time, born in 1961 and raised in Beit Lahia, a community on the northern tip of the Gaza Strip near the Israeli border.

Throughout the early years of his life and into his college years, conflict over control of the area raged.

Hani Shafai, his brother and a friend

“It was really hot, politically,” he said.

His father was a teacher. His mother – “the brain of the operation” – was a farmer and house maker who provided cheese and milk for the community “and could raise any animal,” he said. His father volunteered to market farm products on behalf of Gaza farmers after retiring from teaching.

“I love public service,” Shafai said. “I really do. It’s in your blood when you want to deliver service to the public.”

His own career wound briefly through the public sector but ultimately led to entrepreneurship for the engineer who now leads Dream Design International, a multifaceted firm that offers real estate development, engineering, land planning, construction and property management.

“Having Hani in Rapid City has been a godsend,” said Tom Johnson, president and CEO of Elevate Rapid City, which includes the community’s economic development arm. “He’s like a one-man wrecking crew. He has so much passion and energy for development. He has optimism just built into his DNA.”

Shafai’s reach now is extending into Sioux Falls, where his firm recently was selected to develop the major One Stop office building for the state of South Dakota at Dawley Farm Village.

“We intend to get involved quite a bit in Sioux Falls,” he said. “We’re in the process. We look at defining the need and then filling the need.”

Engineer turned entrepreneur

Shafai’s path from Palestine to the Black Hills of South Dakota starts with a professor. While in college in the West Bank studying engineering, his math professor – who was from South Dakota – broached the idea of a move. Birzeit University, where he was a student, closed because of political strife, and Shafai needed a way to continue his education.

“With the politics in the Middle East, he said, ‘You’re a good student, why don’t you come to the States?’” Shafai said.

It led him to the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology, where he finished his undergraduate degree and later went to graduate school and taught at the university. Along the way, he worked in Chicago and California before eventually being hired by the city of Rapid City as an engineer.

“I did that almost eight years, and then I opened my business,” he said.

He was 38 when he founded Dream Design in 1998, originally as an engineering firm. In about a year, he had 13 employees, “and since then we’ve been very lucky,” he said. “We started as an engineering company and expanded to land development and property management, and now we have a full-blown construction company, so we deliver from A to Z.”

Today, Dream Design has nearly 80 employees among its various companies. The firm’s fingerprints can be seen on projects across the Black Hills region — residential and commercial work, everything from national retail such as Target, Sam’s Club and Cabela’s to the infrastructure around the Rushmore Crossing mall, health care and hospitality projects.

He also developed the state of South Dakota’s 100,000-square-foot One Stop office complex in Rapid City, which opened last year and is similar to the one coming in Sioux Falls.

Some of his newer projects include the 700-acre mixed-use Shepherd Hills development on the east end of Rapid City, which includes a senior living community, with a wide range of price points and commercial space. There are plans for apartments and a neighborhood school.

“I don’t think Rapid City would be growing nearly as fast and robust had he not been here,” Johnson said. “That’s just a fact. He’s that good, that aggressive. I’ve just never seen anything like it anywhere else.”

Just east of Rapid City in Box Elder, Dream Design is developing the 110-acre Liberty Plaza, which will create the community’s first downtown.

The project adjacent to Ellsworth Air Force Base is positioned to capitalize on its expanding B-21 stealth bomber mission, serving as a city center for both the community and the base.

So far, the development includes apartments under construction and lots of plans: a 110-room Wyndham Hotel that includes a Boston’s restaurant and two mixed-use buildings.

“His work in Box Elder to create a city center out of the blue is going to be amazing too,” Johnson said. “He’s definitely a guy that takes risk I think others just don’t have the vision for. You have to believe in yourself, and you really have to be an optimist for the area, and I think Hani was well ahead of seeing the growth in this area.”

When Shafai recognized the Rapid City area needed greater diversity of jobs with higher wages, he bought 700 acres to create the Black Hills Industrial Center, which broke ground last September on the southeast edge of the city.

 “We are moving dirt, and we’ll have sewer and water extended and rail line going through it,” he said. “Our wages have not kept up with inflation over the decade, and therefore, we need something to improve that. And one of the reasons for a lack of wages is because we don’t have big employers, especially in manufacturing.”

A first tenant, Missouri-based Aesir Technologies, which manufactures nickel zinc batteries, has committed to a project there to turn 80 acres into a 600,000-square-foot manufacturing facility, a project that eventually could bring up to 1,500 jobs to the community.

The facility is finishing up design, with plans to break ground this fall, Shafai said.

“There’s no quit in the guy,” Johnson added. “He’s tenacious. I sometimes wonder when he sleeps because he’s doing so many things with so little time.”

One of them includes serving on the board of Sanford Health’s Sioux Falls region, where he “is an active participant to push our focus on balancing our clinical, operational and financial initiatives that has played a significant role in our achieving a number of accolades both internally and externally,” said Paul Hanson, CEO of Sanford Sioux Falls.

This fall, Shafai’s three decades of accomplishments in the state will be recognized with his induction into the South Dakota Hall of Fame.

“Hani is one of those leaders who is willing to share his time and expertise to help those who have questions or concerns,” Hanson said.

“He engages in such a way that he makes you feel comfortable asking any question and truly wants to hear from you on your thoughts and considerations about an issue. He doesn’t judge. And his generosity is recognized by dozens of not-for-profit organizations throughout this state. He makes a difference, and he does so oftentimes as the anonymous donor.”

 Future focus

Back in Sioux Falls, Shafai is finalizing design for the state’s 300,000-square-foot office at Dawley Farm Vilalge, where he estimates more than 800 people will work. The plan is to break ground this fall.

“It’s not going to look like one facility in a big box,” he said. “There’s a lot of natural light to be effective and efficient.”

The design also could include park space on the west side of the property, and “we’re working on adjusting the bus routes” for easier public access, he said. “The city has been great to work with. I’m not kidding you. It’s amazing how great the people are.”

He’s also looking at other opportunities, he said.

“Our goal is to team up and not be here to be competition with the local guys but complement what they’re doing,” he said. “A lot of them are our clients (in western South Dakota): The Lloyds, Legacy, Samuelson (Development), they’re all buying land from us, and we do design for some of them, so we want to complement what they’re doing.”

The need in Sioux Falls includes “some additional hospitality downtown, additional homeownership downtown – by that I mean condos – and then affordable housing within downtown and the entire community,” Shafai said. “We get along with everyone. It’s fun to do business. We’re not looking to maximize profit.”

That’s true, Johnson agreed, pointing to multiple instances when Shafai has chosen community need over a bigger bottom line.

“There’s no doubt he has that mindset, and I think that’s part of his DNA and how he came to this country and what Rapid City has done for him, and I think he’s given back to the community and the state at large,” he said.

Look for Dream Design to do more in downtown Rapid City too, Johnson added.

“He’s going to be doing big things, and he’s going to have legacy projects across the board in the area that are remembered for generations.”