A united mission has created United Yards.
How do you revitalize a local economy, plus create a healthy community and drive small-business development? Take the case of United Yards in the historically undercapitalized Back of the Yards neighborhood of Southside Chicago. In December 2023, LIIF invested $5.35 million to two developers, Blackwood Development Group and Celadon Partners, to bridge the funding of a pair of grants from the City of Chicago: Chicago Redevelopment Program (CRP) and Tax Increment Financing (TIF). LIIF’s loans are part of a capital stack that also includes a New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) equity; a grant from the Chicago Community Trust; and two loans, side-by-side with LIIF’s funding, from peer a CDFI, IFF.
Today was the ribbon-cutting for this project that rehabilitated the ground floor of the vacant 92-year-old Goldblatt’s department store. There is now a 14,200-square-foot federally qualified health center (FQHC), Friend Health, which is moving from down the street to this new space where they can scale to include a pharmacy and behavioral health counseling. United Yards also includes a small-business incubator comprising four retail storefronts including a clothing store, coffee shop, bakery and barbershop. The upper floors of this building were previously converted into an affordable assisted-living facility.
Read Block Club Chicago article.
LIIF invested $5.35 million to two developers, Blackwood Development Group and Celadon Partners, to bridge the funding of a pair of grants from the City of Chicago.