1/11/2024 0 Comments Chicago boxvilleMost Boxville businesses were open for the event, which also featured a DJ and a live performance from the Chicago State University marching band. 17 and was centered on an Open House Chicago exhibition, a program run by the Chicago Architecture Center which highlights unique architectural sites across the city. Market days occurred once a week throughout the summer into October. “Not only the warm welcome and everyone supporting each other as individual businesses, especially minority-owned businesses, but the community itself just pulling up, showing up and being curious.”Įvents are among the most important parts of the Boxville experience. Kayla Jeter, a Lululemon ambassador who ran many of the events at Boxville this summer, enjoyed interacting with the community. They plan to open a permanent store in Hyde Park on 53rd Street in November. Lululemon’s last day at Boxville was Oct. Karla Huffman, Community Lead for Lululemon in Chicago, explained Lululemon wanted to open a South Side store and contracted for six months to do fitness classes for free. Jamison said.Ī unique development at Boxville this summer was the presence of Lululemon, by far the largest business that has ever used the Boxville space. “It’s a market and then it’s like, it’s filled with just a lot of moving, like energy, inspiration and we all grow together as a unit so it’s really cool,” Mr. It’s a market and then it’s like, it’s filled with just a lot of moving, like energy, inspiration and we all grow together as a unit so it’s really cool.” Jamison thinks that the diversity of businesses present at Boxville benefits everyone involved. Some of the other businesses at Boxville include Natty Bwoy, a bike and skate shop Southside Grinds, a coffee shop Last Lap Cornerstore, an athletic wear store and a location of the Bronzeville Historical Society. “There’s a synergy with all five groups to make the community a stronger, more viable place to do business,” Ms. Janeen Mays, a marketing consultant for Urban Juncture, said the value of the Build Bronzeville project comes from the variety of initiatives. The other four initiatives are the Bronzeville Incubator, an office space for local entrepreneurs who need a space to work Engage Bronzeville, a project focused on the beautification of spaces in the neighborhood Bronzeville Cookin’, a facility that offers more conventional storefronts than Boxville specifically for restaurants and The Forum, an old community theater which provides space for creative performance. The Urban Juncture Foundation, the nonprofit which runs Boxville, specifically designed the market to mitigate a variety of issues small business owners on the South Side face when starting their enterprises including prohibitive start up costs, a lack of existing customer base in the neighborhood and a general absence of support mechanisms for the starting of a business.īoxville is just one of five major initiatives in Urban Juncture’s Build Bronzeville project, which seeks to contribute to the revitalization of the Bronzeville neighborhood. William Jamison, the owner of The Work Spot, a clothing print shop, said he felt the transition from a workshop in his basement to a storefront at Boxville solidified The Work Spot as a full-fledged business.įrom the beginning, Boxville was designed to be a place where businesses from the community could get their start. The market’s unique environment offers several benefits. Since then Boxville has expanded, this season boasting 22 shipping containers and 12 businesses that operate out of the location year-round.īoxville is almost entirely made up of small, minority-owned businesses. The Boxville project began in 2017 with five “boxes” located at 51st Street and Calumet Avenue, adjacent to the 51st Street Green Line station. The mood is celebratory, but this event is bittersweet as this is the last event of the season at the Boxville market. Suddenly, the music cuts out and people cluster around the center of the plaza as a small marching band comes out to perform. People move among vibrantly colored shipping containers talking, eating and laughing. Barbecue smoke and music permeate the air on an unseasonably hot October afternoon as a Green Line L train rattles by overhead.
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