Initiatives
Build Bronzeville
Build Bronzeville comprises five initiatives centered around the Chicago Transit Authority's Green Line stations at 51st Street and 43rd Street, in the heart of Chicago's historic Bronzeville community. Build Bronzeville initiatives work together to support and advance locally-owned, culture-based enterprises and catalyze neighborhood revitalization.
Engage Bronzeville
employs a wide variety of art forms, public events, community gardens, music, and more to create beautiful owned and shared spaces that connect neighbors and engage visitors to opportunity and resources from Bronzeville and beyond.
The Bronzeville Incubator
provides local entrepreneurs and enterprises with a range of support and capacity-building resources while offering a sun-filled office and unique outdoor spaces for co-working and events. The Incubator houses the Small Business Development Center at Build Bronzeville, which provides free support services for a broad range of small businesses, as well as the Bronzeville Culinary Connection, which focuses on advancing local culinary enterprises, and the Creative Incubator, which supports local creatives.
Boxville
is a shipping-container-based enterprise accelerator. It serves Bronzeville residents and visitors with unique cuisine, one-of-a-kind products and everyday necessities while offering local entrepreneurs engaging spaces for building their enterprises that require a fraction of the time and capital of conventional retail spaces.
Bronzeville Cookin'
at its facility at 51st Street and the CTA Green Line is poised to become a culinary launch pad and a platform for job creation with key acquisitions to support local restauranteurs' growth. Under this initiative, Friistyle Chi and Iyanze Bronze are in place, and culinary seeds are sprouting at Boxville and across the South Side.
The Forum
and Bronzeville Cookin' provide long-term "brick & mortar" platforms for culinary and creative enterprises. The Forum, a historic retail, and hospitality complex located at 43rd Street and the Green Line, is reaching for its potential as an iconic home for cultural performances, a catalyst for the revitalization of 43rd Street, and a complement to the emerging 51st Street restaurant row.
Build Bronzeville meets community enterprises where they are. These enterprises often have well-defined and tested offerings that are ready for their first formal retail space. However, enterprise leaders often don’t have access to the information and resources they need to take their enterprises to the next level and remain stuck in place, or fold.