CHICAGO — Several community-led business plans, including a worker cooperative’s manufacturing center and a live-work building for young Black Chicagoans, will receive six-figure grants through a new city-backed fund.

Six projects were announced last week as the inaugural recipients of Wealth Our Way grants. The first round of the initiative, funded by city housing bond proceeds, aims to support worker co-ops, community investment vehicles and other development.

The grants:

  • $500,000 to Chicago Quilombo, 1732 E. 79th St. in South Shore. The nonprofit will redevelop the building into 10 apartments, a community center, a small business marketplace and a spirit-free restaurant featuring Black cuisines. The total project cost is $3.5 million.
  • $500,000 to Bennett Place, 7051 S. Bennett Ave. in South Shore. An ownership group of Jackson Park Highlands residents will build a 5,000-square-foot restaurant on the ground floor of the mixed-use building. The project cost is $5.4 million.
  • $500,000 to CrossTreats, 7920 S. Greenwood Ave. in Avalon Park. The worker cooperative will acquire and renovate the 12,500-square-foot building to manufacture nut-free snack foods. The project cost is $2 million.
  • $345,533 to E.G. Woode, 1116 W. 63rd St. in Englewood. The real estate cooperative will acquire and renovate the 1,860-square-foot commercial building to host pop-up shops for local businesses. The project cost is $460,710.
  • $200,000 to HAZ Cooperative Studios, 1706 S. Halsted St. in Pilsen. The worker- and artist-owned cooperative will expand the studios, event space and e-commerce operations inside its collectively owned building. The project cost is $266,667.
  • $116,553 to Five Point Holistic Health, 2864 N. Milwaukee Ave. in Avondale. The cooperative will renovate part of a commercial building to expand its holistic health services like acupuncture and herbal medicine. The project cost is $155,404.

Construction on each project is expected to start early next year, said Ja’Net Defell, president and CEO of Community Desk Chicago, the city’s technical assistance provider for the grant program.

Community Desk Chicago will help grantees navigate their permit and financing needs, Defell said. The nonprofit will also offer a real estate coach and an operations coach to each recipient and organize sessions for grantees to learn from each other and from similar models across the country, she said.

The Midwest is “way behind” major coastal cities in funding and supporting shared ownership models like co-ops and collectives, Defell said.

“We’re using this [program] as an economic development tool,” Defell said. Chicago and other Midwestern cities “haven’t historically looked at shared-ownership models as a way to revitalize neighborhoods, so we want to continue that work.”

Another round of grants is expected in late 2026, while Community Desk Chicago is working with Illinois and philanthropic institutions to sustain the program for future rounds, she said.

“These brick-and-mortar projects will help activate a variety of underutilized spaces as
part of a national movement toward community-driven investment through shared-
ownership models,” Chicago Planning Commissioner Ciere Boatright said in a statement.

Chicago Quilombo secured the $500,000 to support its small business marketplace and resource hub the same week it received a $100,000 pre-development grant from the Chicago Community Trust, cofounder Cosette Ayele said.

The Wealth Our Way grant offers “not only money, but also connections” between the Quilombo project and others in the cohort, Ayele said. The CrossTreats facility is just about a mile away from the Quilombo, offering an opportunity for the organizations to become neighbors and partners, she said.

The grant program will “help propel us towards a full-scale opening and demonstrates that we’re doing what we set out to do, so we can secure other funding to help us finish the total development,” Ayele said. “It contributes to my feeling that we’re going in the right direction.”

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