Grants

Grant Recipient

E. G. Woode, L3C

Awarded: February 2024 Awarded Amount: $500,000

A capital request in the amount of $500,000 to support the renovation of an existing 9000 SF building on the 63rd Street Corridor in Englewood to launch a food hub. The $7.1M food hub will house emerging food entrepreneurs from Englewood, providing access to two new, sit-down restaurants and a training kitchen for aspiring food entrepreneurs to prepare for their launch. The Project Developer is E.G. Woode, L3C, a minority-led company. EG Woode, has assembled an experienced development team comprised of Teresa Prim, of Prim Lawrence Group Company, a real estate development consulting firm, Applegate Thorne Thomsen has been retained as legal counsel. Beehyyve, a local minority-owned architecture firm, has been retained to provide architectural services. PAC Construction, a minority-owned general contractor, has been selected to provide general contracting services. EG Woode has site control, the property was purchased from the Cook County Land Bank Authority. Capital has been secured financing commitments to complete the project which includes: the City of Chicago TIF (5,000,000), State of Illinois REBUILD (1,164,683), Community Desk (90,000), LISC permanent mortgage of $214,982, $20,000 in Owners’ Equity, and 150,000 in deferred developer fees. LISC is providing construction bridge loan financing in the amount of $3,495,320, note commitment letter forthcoming. All project site due diligence has been completed, i.e., Construction documents have been submitted for building permit, Phase I, Asbestos/Lead Reports, etc. The project is ready to proceed, and the goal is to close on all financing in January 2024 and commence construction in February of 2024. See Evidence of Financing Commitments Attached.

Grant Recipient

The Chicago Community Trust

Awarded: February 2024 Awarded Amount: $175,000

Grant Recipient

The Chicago Community Trust

Awarded: February 2024 Awarded Amount: $150,000

Grant Recipient

University of Chicago

Awarded: February 2024 Awarded Amount: $28,963

In this project, we propose to continue our ongoing studies to fully characterize in situ immune cell heterogeneity and spatial relationships in human lupus nephritis biopsies. We will do this by combining high-dimensional (60 analytes) with customized deep machine learning analytical pipelines. As described in the following application, knowledge of in situ immunity will help in the development of new prognostic markers and also identify new therapeutic opportunities. Our patient population is predominantly young African-American women. Among patient groups, African Americans get the worse, most treatment resistant lupus nephritis. They are also relatively underrepresented in most studies of lupus nephritis.

Grant Recipient

Duo Development

Awarded: February 2024 Awarded Amount: $650,000

We request that you please begin by reviewing the attachment titled “Starling – Project and Concept Plan_WRT.pdf” in the attachments. This document has an overview of everything that is outlined in this application. Starling, located at 1600 S Sawyer Avenue in North Lawndale, just a few blocks away from Douglass Park, is a beautiful new state-of-the-art construction project that will break ground in Spring 2024 and open to the public before October of 2024. This building will feature a café service by award winning coffee company, Monday Coffee Co., and offer flexible areas for residents and organizations to lease on a short-term, flexible basis. Residents and guests will be able to enjoy the building free of charge and without having to purchase coffee. Occupying 2,500 square feet of the 6,000 square-foot site, Starling will provide spaces and programming for residents to gather, replenish, learn, and create. Starling is an initiative to preserve and improve the built environment and a space for art and culture, economic development and workforce development, transportation, infrastructure & technology​, and green & open space. Most importantly, Starling will be a space for liberation – it will breathe new life to a commercial corridor, celebrate local culture, and uplift over 30,000 neighbors each year.​ As a development project, Starling will set a new precedent for ethical practices in the real estate industry. Most notably, the building will share profits with neighbors and foster collective ownership. What also sets Starling apart is its genuine commitment to community engagement. Over the past six years, the project has actively sought and incorporated input from more than 350 residents, ensuring that their voices and perspectives shape the project's vision. Additionally, the development team reviewed insights from over 30 secondary sources about the North Lawndale area to inform their decision-making. Starling is a community collaboration led by our team, Duo (a 501c3 non-profit organization in Illinois), and we’ve partnered with Canopy Architecture, McKay Landscape Architects, and will feature Monday Coffee Co​. With an estimated cost of $1.7M, Starling has already received awards from the Chicago Community Trust​, City of Chicago Neighborhood Opportunity Fund​, City of Chicago Equitable Transit-Oriented Development (ETOD).

Grant Recipient

The Chicago Community Trust

Awarded: February 2024 Awarded Amount: $400,000

Grant Recipient

Chicago Neighborhood Initiatives Inc

Awarded: February 2024 Awarded Amount: $1,000,000

The Pullman Hotel Group, LLC (PHG) is planning to develop a Hampton Inn by Hilton near 111th Street and Doty Avenue, providing high-quality lodging for this burgeoning tourism area of our city. The project will bring the first nationally branded hotel to Chicago’s Historic Pullman community. In addition to providing 105 much-needed hotel rooms to an area of Chicago bereft of viable lodging options, the Pullman Hotel Project will bring much-needed jobs and community pride to area residents, while furthering the economic development momentum growing in the area. Positioned less than one mile from a recently developed regional mall, new restaurants, and other retail businesses, the hotel site is directly adjacent to the Pullman Park Industrial Park, a rapidly developing home to a number of recently developed warehousing and distribution facilities including a regional distribution center for Whole Foods, a regional hub facility for Amazon, operations for SC Johnson, Method, and Gotham Greens.

Grant Recipient

Carole Robertson Center for Learning

Awarded: February 2024 Awarded Amount: $750,000

For over 45 years, the mission of the Carole Robertson Center for Learning (the Center) has been to educate, enrich, and empower children and families. Our programs reach children at every stage of development – from prenatal to age 17 – and their families, and we focus on BIPOC communities that have suffered from a legacy of disinvestment and marginalization. Our vision is to help build a just and equitable society wherein the Center, in partnership with families, is a beacon of best practices, innovation, and impact. In September 2023, we launched our first-ever campaign – Invest Today, Empower Tomorrow – to ensure we can continue to provide enriching environments for the exceptional education that all children, youth, and families deserve. By ensuring working parents in some of Chicago’s most marginalized communities have access to high-quality early education and youth development programs for their children, the Center is playing a key role in the city’s economic recovery and long-term prosperity. The campaign is focused on increasing capital resources, promoting future program innovation, and guaranteeing the long-term stability of our organization so that we can continue to play this vital role for many decades to come. We are requesting funding from We Rise Together to support innovative, child-centered, and community-driven capital improvements at our flagship site located at 2929 West 19th Street in Little Village.