Disinvestment in these communities goes back decades

By La Risa Lynch

In its heyday Englewood’s 63^rd Street was the second busiest commercial district outside of downtown and the shopping mecca for Chicago’s Black community.

The thoroughfare teemed with major department stores from Sears, Florsheim Shoes, Wieboldt’s to small mom and pop shops, restaurants and social clubs, many of which were Black owned. But disinvestment from the city followed by crime, white flight then business flight left 63^rd Street pot marked with shuttered stores and vacant lots. That left Englewood with a business vacancy rate (unoccupied versus occupied commercial spaces) a few points higher than the city, which stands at 15 percent.

If fact, more than half of the city’s Black neighborhoods have higher business vacancy rates than the entire city, an analysis of 2018 business vacancy data from the United States Postal Services shows. Some neighborhoods like South Chicago and South Shore are nearly double. Englewood and West Englewood combined have a business vacancy rates of 18 percent. But that number may not tell the whole story since more vacant lots dominate the area. Nearly 700 acres of vacant land comprise Englewood, according to a 2005 quality of life plan by Teamwork Englewood and Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) Chicago.

Chicago’s mayor has a plan to revive struggling commercial districts in Black and Brown communities. In October, Mayor Lori Lightfoot unveiled the Invest South/West initiative, a plan to boost commercial activity in economically disinvested neighborhoods. The initiative aims to pour $250 million of both public and private dollars into ten Black and Brown communities with struggling business corridors.  Englewood is among the ten communities slated to get $25 million each. The others include Austin, South Chicago, South Shore, Roseland and New City. The initiative will fund shovel-ready economic development projects identified in existing community development plans.

The initiative drew both praise and skepticism at a Jan. 14^th meeting attended by Englewood’s all five aldermen. It was the first time all the aldermen came together to map out Englewood’s future as a whole. Their wards divide Englewood into five separate fiefdoms, which many say leads to a patch work of development activity.

“We are here to listen about what we can do collectively to improve Englewood,” said Ald. Roderick Sawyer (6th), who shared the stage with Alds. Raymond Lopez (15th), Stephanie Coleman (16th), David Moore (17th) and Jeanette Taylor (20th).

Some attending the meeting held at a south side community college say it’s time Englewood got the investment and attention it deserves. But skepticism also arose that the funds slated for the community won’t make a dent to reverse decades of disinvestment that left 63^rd Street and other commercial thoroughfares shells of their former selves.

Through the 40s and the 80s, 63rd street had more than 200 stores including three movie palaces. Only a few stores remain now even though the street is experiencing a slow resuscitation anchored by a Whole Foods in a new mall that opened in 2016.

Asiaha Butler, executive director of Resident Association of Greater Englewood or RAGE is optimistic about the mayor’s initiative, but she’s also realistic.

“It is a good start, but you are talking about 25 years of disinvestment,” Butler said. “So, $25 million is not even close to the reparations we need in Englewood. We need billions here to get this right. I am not going to dis a $25 million investment, but come on.”

Just to build the shopping center anchored by Whole Foods costs $20 million; to build Kennedy-King College campus where the meeting took place costs $192 million and the area’s new ambulatory facility costs $33 million.

Even with those investments, Englewood still struggles, Butler noted, adding that the community needs so much more including better transit. At one time, Englewood had eight train stations. Only two exists now.

Any investment needs to be continual and go beyond campaign promises or just showing up at a ribbon cutting then leave, Butler added. She hopes the aldermen heard the residents’ concerns that ranged from clean streets, crime, housing to youth activities and more green space – issues her group has organized around for years.

It’s time, Butler said, for the aldermen “to put your money where your mouth is” to collectively create a redevelopment plan or support existing plans to revive Englewood. Residents, she added, have been meeting for years to map out their vision for Englewood that produce two quality of life plans. The aldermen, she said, must be held accountable to bring those visions to fruition.

“I hope this is not a dog and pony show. I cannot do this work without being optimistic,” Butler said.

Billed as Lightfoot’s “Marshall Plan,” the initiative is funded through a mix of tax increment financing (TIF) dollars and several business economic development programs, including the neighborhood opportunity funds (NOF). Lightfoot inherited NOF from her predecessor but tweaked it to provide more direct funding.

BMO Harris Bank kicked in an additional $10 million to help support this effort while Fifth Third Bank will invest $20 million in federally qualified opportunity zones projects that overlap in the Invest South/West program area. Opportunity zones provide corporate tax breaks to companies that invest in specific low-income areas and is as part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2018.

These investments will build on more than $500 million in infrastructure improvements, like streetscapes and new transit stations already in the pipeline for these communities. Over the next three years these communities can leverage more than $750 million for economic development.

Revin Fellows, with the National Black Agenda Consortium and former Englewood resident, welcomes the assistance, but pointed out the economic disparities in that assistance. The city, Fellows noted approved billions in TIF dollars for two megaprojects near downtown compared to the millions split between ten communities.

Lincoln Yards, a $6 billion mixed-use project with high-rise office towers, residential, retail and park space, got $900 million in TIF assistance. The 78, another massive residential and commercial project so named because it would create a new community among the city’s 77 designated ones, got $700 million.

“Ain’t no equity in that conversation,” Fellows said. “Our condition is too bad to start with too little money. This is not how you mathematically catch up by getting millions when everybody is getting billions.”

Commissioner of the Department of Planning and Development Maurice D. Cox understood residents’ concerns. The funds, he said, is a jumping off point to attract other investments from the private sector. But $25 million is still a lot of money to spend on neighborhood projects, he added.

“This is really just a down payment for funds that will follow,” Cox said. “It will allow us to start which is very important [because] investment begets more investment begets more investment. I’m sure the private sector will join us if those investments are coordinated and strategic.”

University of Illinois Professor Janet Smith commended the mayor’s initiative, but rang a bell of caution. She said for catalytic change to happen, it depends on what kind of retail development will take place, does it meet community’s needs and offer jobs paying good living wages.

“That’s what we really have to ask,” said Smith, co-director of Voorhees Center, a research center focusing on community development issues. “Is this for the community by the community, or is this for an investor who cares about coming into the community, taking money from the community and leaving. What’s going to ensure that the investment is going to benefit the community is community involvement and accountability of all who are involved.”

Lifelong Englewood resident Arness Dancy isn’t waiting on aid from the city. Dancy, founder and CEO of the Chicagoland Black Chamber of Commerce, is developing a 240-unit mixed-use mixed-income project on Halsted Street, another commercial strip in Englewood.

He noted the $70 million project, which is in its second iteration, nearly didn’t happened. He blamed a little City Hall perk called aldermanic prerogative. Chicago aldermen have used this unwritten policy to either greenlight or deny projects – everything from building permits to zoning requests. Mayor Lightfoot curbed that perk through an executive order, hours after taking office.

“It was blocked,” Dancy said of the project he’s been working on since 2007 with a development team out of Columbus, Ohio called KBK Enterprises. The scaled down project originally consisted of 536 units costing an estimate $250 million. The project is winding its way through the city’s planning process. Dancy expects to break ground later this year.

Dancy, however, called Invest South/West a good start. He believes leveraging a $1 billion general obligation bonds with the proceeds to front dormant TIFs on the south and west sides is another way to spur economic development in disinvested communities.

“That in conjunction with Invest South/West could be a huge shot in the arm to spur economic investment and development in these neighborhoods.”