Years of disinvestment, disengagement, and blight have left the city with few prime commercial spaces, under-resourced business districts and a surplus of dilapidated buildings. For business owners wishing to locate in Bronzeville, expenses and challenges multiply. The start up capital required to access typical commercial storefronts can be wildly expensive. Credit: Boxvilleīoxville allows entrepreneurs and small businesses to open shop affordably and receive supportive services.
Boxville is home to nearly a dozen local businesses. Created as a stepping stone for Black businesses to grow, progress, and prosper, the accelerator enterprise is located in a former vacant lot at 330 East 51 st Street and covers about one-third of a city block. Boxville is one of Chicago’s first shipping container restaurant and retail centers. Urban Juncture established Build Bronzeville, which consists of five initiatives designed to revitalize the once-prosperous city.įive years ago, the Boxville Marketplace became one of those initiatives. Bernard Lloyd, founder of Urban Juncture We are focused on creating local opportunity and that is where the injustice has been.
Lloyd is the founder of Urban Juncture, a nonprofit organization dedicated to revitalizing disinvested Black urban communities by rebuilding neighborhood commerce around culture and innovation. With a primarily Black demographic, the median household income in the area is $30,979, just half of Chicago’s median income of $61,811.īernard Lloyd is working to change that. Bronzeville is now home to just under 26,000 residents. Since 1970, the city’s population has decreased by 59%. The city was once a center of robust economic, social and artistic advancement on Chicago’s south side. Bronzeville was once an epicenter for arts, culture and commerce, filled with a community of working middle-to-upper-class Black families. One such neighborhood is Bronzeville in Chicago. These days, it is not uncommon to see homes, schools, hospitals, and even swimming pools constructed from shipping containers.Īrmed with this knowledge, urban planners and community developers have joined the movement, using shipping containers to construct temporary and permanent shopping malls that empower Black and Brown entrepreneurs, help fledgling businesses, and revive downtown areas in disenfranchised neighborhoods. This is because the country imports more than it exports and shipping the containers back to Asia would be too expensive for most businesses.įortunately over the last 20 years, builders have been utilizing shipping containers as affordable, environmentally friendly alternatives to traditional constructions. In America especially, many containers sit idle. Of that figure only 6 million are actually in circulation. "Commerce is the key to rebuilding a community," Martin said.Currently there are over 17 million shipping containers across the globe being used to transport mass products from one country to the next. We're in the middle there to encourage them, to give them a platform for the business to be set-up for success," said Alexander Martin, director of Boxville.Įventually, Martin and Loyd hope to launch Boxville 2.0, which could include 100 total businesses and four stories of shipping crates. "We're in the middle of landlord-tenant and partnership. They'll be welcoming even more small business owners by the end of the year.įrom bike repairs to haircuts, groceries to tacos and hot dogs, running gear to spiritual guidance, you can shop for anything at Chicago's shipping container incubator.īoxville is only one of five initiatives that are part of Build Bronzeville, a nonprofit dedicated to providing community resources, business support, and civic engagement to the South Side. In the past year, the incubator grew from hosting 4 businesses to now hosting 9. "Boxville has doubled every year (since 2016)," said Loyd. you can shop for anything at Chicago's shipping container incubator: Boxville.ĬHICAGO - When Bernard Loyd founded Boxville on a collection of vacant lots on Chicago's South Side several years ago, he had no idea it would become a community hub for the Bronzeville neighborhood and one of the city's fastest growing business incubators. Bike repairs, haircuts, groceries, tacos, hot dogs, running gear, tea, spiritual guidance.
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