Metropolitan Planning Council
Bronzeville Collective Retailer Laine's Bake Shop
What happens when negative spaces become opportunities for community growth? Could these spaces somehow help to reverse the recent trend of population loss and retail vacancies? Recently, the Bronzeville Retail Initiative, with support from Metropolitan Planning Council, 51st Street Business Association, Illinois Institute of Technology’s Urban Activators, decided to find out. We considered two factors:
- Abandoned retail spaces have plagued the Bronzeville community in recent decades and are an impediment to the redevelopment of many urban neighborhoods.
- Bronzeville has a rich history of cottage industry, or small businesses that operate in residences.
What if the Bronzeville Retail Initiative connected cottage industries with vacant retail spaces? Believing that activating storefronts in a temporary, cost-effective manner could create an atmosphere conducive to economic development and provide expanded business opportunities for emerging entrepreneurs, we decided to make it happen.
Outreach to Cottage industries
Local entrepreneurs speaking to Bronzeville's Cottage Industry. From left: Noel Mickelson, Darnell Johnson, Ken Burkeen and Andre Guichard
Metropolitan Planning Council
On Saturday, June 21, the Bronzeville Retail Initiative and partners hosted an outreach event to connect with the community’s cottage industries. We’d heard a lot about these businesses, but had yet to organize them to meet each other and discuss their goals. At this event we made introductions, gathered information about the needs of the 50 business owners in attendance and shared our goal to connect them with local retail spaces through pop-up events, in hopes of eventually establishing long-term leases. A panel of four successful Bronzeville-based entrepreneurs also shared their stories of challenges and success.
Businesses that the Bronzeville Retail Initiative is engaging:
- Designers, artists, artisans, bakers, chefs, writers and all other interested entrepreneurs with unique marketable merchandise
- Entrepreneurs in search of a short-term lease and inexpensive retail space as an outlet to share their work with the community
- Professional and hardworking entrepreneurs that are ready to partner with the Bronzeville community to take their business to the next level
Highlights of what we learned from the outreach event include:
- Some businesses had been in operation for 10 to 15 years while some were still aspirational
- Most were home-based
- Some carried business licenses, some did not
- Personal savings was the most commonly reported source of business financing, followed by support from family and friends. A small number of attendees reported using income from another job to support their business.
The outreach event provided the Bronzeville Retail Initiative and its partners with unique insights into the entrepreneurial spirit of the Bronzeville community.
The Bronzeville Collective: Pop Up Retail Weekend
The pop-up event allowed vendors a chance to network and present their products in a public space.
Metropolitan Planning Council
On Friday and Saturday, Aug. 1 and 2, the Bronzeville Retail Initiative and its partners hosted a pop-up retail event called The Bronzeville Collective. The event featured six of the local businesses that that we met at the June outreach event, all but one currently operate out of their homes.
This event took place while the 51st Street Music Festival was happening just a few blocks away. During the pop-up, additional programming activated the space, including cookie-making and aromatherapy demonstrations, live music performances and makeup tutorials. The event was well attended by a wide range of organizations and businesses. In conversations with attendees, we heard that Bronzeville would benefit from continued spotlight on its local businesses:
Jessica Cain, President and CEO, Cain’s Barber College:
Cain's Barber College has been in the community for 29 years so I know all about the potential of Bronzeville's business community. I think the event served as a valuable venue for our community- let's keep the Pop up venue going. I surely enjoyed myself.
Happy customers James H. Parker and Jessica Cain networking outside of the Bronzeville Collective.
Metropolitan Planning Council
James H. Parker, small business website designer at WeMakeCoolWebsites.com and employment specialist, Chicago Urban League
I thought the event was awesome! What a wonderful idea. Seeing an empty building on the Southside of Chicago turned into a profit making entity to promote small businesses is simply a remarkable idea. In addition, the businesses had great products. I purchased some peach cobbler from Laine’s Bake Shop and a bracelet with charms from Diane McDonald. Overall, I was thoroughly impressed with the idea and wait with anticipation for the next Pop Up in this neighborhood.
Maurice Shelton (center), owner of Black Rose Pastries and Bronzeville Collective retailer, attended the pop-up event.
Black Rose Pastries
Maurice Shelton, Black Rose Pastries, Pop Up Retailer
The event was so fun. I had a blast. It was amazing. I met a lot of good people and gained some new customers who have already made repeat orders after meeting me at the pop up. I usually work out of a commercial kitchen and, through word of mouth, make deliveries. This pop up event was the first time that I was in a brick and mortar space where people come to me. I posted the event on Facebook and people came and found me at the pop up. That was a huge confidence booster for me.
The pop-up event, while time-intensive to plan, was the easy part. The hard work comes in engaging the commercial space owners to lease their spaces for affordable rates to these businesses—perhaps even for free for some time—with the hopes that the business can thrive and eventually pay market-rate rents. The Bronzeville Retail Initiative hopes to continue to promote the growth of Bronzeville’s entrepreneurial and cottage industries through the following experimental pilot activities:
- A series of pop-up events in the Bronzeville community, in coordination with upcoming street festivals and other public events, including Bronzeville Nights and the Bronzeville Jazz Fest
- Ongoing outreach events to equip Bronzeville’s entrepreneurial and cottage industry owners with information to support their growth
- Long-term lease agreements between local business owners and vacant storefront owners
Third Ward Alderman Pat Dowell (center) stopped by the pop-up event.
Black Rose Pastries
Through the design and production of a replicable instant pop-up store that can be used in vacant storefronts, this effort could ultimately transform more than just one neighborhood. The Bronzeville community is experiencing a new wave of exciting economic development and local entrepreneurialism with businesses such as the Bronzeville Bike Box, Gallery Guichard and a new hair salon from global beauty brand Huetiful. This is the perfect time to energize other local business owners to help revive the community’s vacant retail corridors. The goal is to explore how cottage industries can help to revive distressed retail corridors in communities that have experienced decreased populations and commercial vacancies. These trends are not unique to Bronzeville- MPC hopes that lessons learned in this community can be used to help bolster the local economies of other communities in the Chicago region and beyond.