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Impact

Asset Digest on Paul Rabinovitch.

January 16, 2023

Asset Digest announces Paul Rabinovitch joins SmallChange.co Crowdfunding Platform as Strategic Advisor.

Rabinovitch was the former principal and head of real estate at New Island Capital Management, a 100% impact investment advisory firm. Over the past 2 decades he has overseen investments of approximately $500 million of equity in real estate and is widely considered a pioneer in impact investing for real estate.

“Small Change is tackling the inequity of the real estate world head on, opening doors for emerging developers, first-time investors and disinvested places alike.” says Rabinovitch. “I’m looking forward to working with Small Change to ensure that these open doors become major thoroughfares of opportunity.”

Rabinovitch joins Small Change as the company launches its first-ever community-round capital raise on Wefunder. As strategic advisor, he will help guide the continued expansion of the growing platform.

Logo from Asset Digest

Democratizing green roofs.

January 11, 2023

Molly Meyer is democratizing the green roof. 

80% of the buildings that will exist in a few decades from now are already built. And since buildings are one of the biggest contributors to climate change, figuring out how to retrofit them economically and easily is a must do. Green roofs are a big part of that. Molly wants to put a green roof within the reach of anyone who owns a building.

She’s tackling this through engineering incredibly lightweight soil and systematically training contractors in how to use it. Her company, Omni Ecosystems, in Chicago, is growing, evidence of the demand.

Molly’s interest in green roofs developed in Germany, where she spent two years working in the green roof industry on a Robert Bosch Fellowship after completing her degree in Earth Systems at Stanford. She founded Omni Ecosystems in 2009 where she works to advance technology associated with working landscapes in order to create rooftop gardens (and other types of working landscapes) that are functional, biodiverse, environmentally friendly, and fiscally beneficial. The company is multidisciplinary and comprised of five branches: OmniInnovation (research and development), OmniProducts (product development), OmniWorkshop (design studio), OmniConstruction (installs living infrastructure systems), and OmniStewardship (provides care for long term landscape management). They don’t just build green roofs – they invent, design, supply, construct, and maintain working landscapes.

In 2019 Omni Ecosystems headquarters relocated to the Bowman Dairy Company’s State Street facility in Chicago, rehabilitating the neglected into a design studio with a 30 ft palm tree, construction yard and manufacturing warehouse, and a rooftop showcase with a 15,000 sq ft green roof including 32 trees. Omni Ecosystems has patented a number of innovative solutions to improve their products including the Omni Tapestry and the Omni Green Roof and have received numerous awards for their visionary products and Molly has received more for her visionary leadership.

Read the podcast transcript here

Eve Picker: [00:00:11] I thought I’d kick off the New Year with an inspirational conversation I had with Molly Meyer last year. Molly is the founder of Omni Systems. She’s developed a brand-new approach to greening roofs.  She’s engineered an incredibly light-weight soil that weighs just 12.5% of your average garden soil, making it possible to easily grow trees on rooftops. Why is this so important? 80% of the buildings that will exist in a few decades from now are already built. And since buildings are one of the biggest contributors to climate change, figuring out how to retrofit them economically and easily is a must do. Green roofs are a big part of that. Molly wants to put a green roof within the reach of anyone who owns a building. I was blown away. 

If you missed this podcast when it was first published, make sure to catch it now.

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Eve: [00:01:38] Molly Meyer is democratizing the green roof. Why, you ask? 80% of the buildings that will exist in a few decades from now are already built. And since buildings are one of the biggest contributors to climate change, figuring out how to retrofit them economically and easily is a must do. Green roofs are a really big part of that. Molly wants to put a green roof within the reach of anyone who owns a building. She’s tackling this through engineering incredibly lightweight soil and systematically training contractors in how to use it. Her company, Omni Systems in Chicago, is growing, evidence of the demand. I was fascinated and hope you will be to listen in. If you’d like to join me in my quest to rethink real estate, please share this podcast. Or go to RethinkRealEstate.Co and describe to be the first to hear what we’re cooking up next. Hi, Molly. It’s really nice to have you on my show today.

Molly Meyer: [00:01:41] It’s so nice to be here. Thank you, Eve.

Eve: [00:01:44] You’ve built an amazing company I heard about called Omni Ecosystems with a vision to democratize the Green Roof. So tell me about that. What’s the problem that you’re trying to solve?

Molly: [00:01:57] Yeah, so, well, green roofs are one aspect of it, but when we’re thinking about putting landscapes on structure, weight is a serious concern. So making sure that green roofs, or that the ecosystems that we put on structure aren’t too heavy. And so we’ve invented a new type of growing media or engineered green media, which colloquially we call soil, but it’s very, very lightweight. And so typical soil, like in someone’s front yard, would weigh under a lawn. To grow that lawn would be about 120 pounds per square foot. And typical green roof systems will grow along in about 80 pounds a square foot. We’ve grown lawns in 15.

Molly: [00:02:48] Oh Wow.

Molly: [00:02:50] Orders of magnitude lighter weight.

Eve: [00:02:52] Wow. Wow, wow.

Molly: [00:02:54] And so why is this important? You know, this is one aspect of what we do, which is broadly, broadly what we do is how do we integrate nature into the built environment. But why is this aspect of it important is because when we look at the building stock that’s going to exist in 2040, I might have this stat wrong, but I believe it’s almost 80% of the building stock is already built. Right. And that’s huge. So, and when we know that the built environment contributes at least 40% to greenhouse gas emissions, then that makes it very clear that there’s a huge imperative to retrofit and to adapt our existing structures to be more, to be able to mitigate and adapt to climate change. So when we think of overhauling the auto industry or transportation, if the administration were to put forth a new sort of emissions standards for auto manufacturers, that would turn over about 10 to 15 years. So, we’d know, okay, in 2037, by 2037, here in 2022, those new standards will be in effect. And we know we’ll see the benefits of these better emission standards. But that’s still only, what, a quarter or a third of emissions. There’s still almost half comes from buildings. So, we really do need to be thinking now about what retrofits look like. And while there’s a lot that contributes towards how a building can be greener, I think one really important part is integrating nature into it. So, creating greenery in, on and around buildings.

Eve: [00:04:49] Interesting. Just as an example, I don’t know, maybe about five years ago, I live in a little downtown building which has a flat roof with a stair to it. And I wanted to put a, I wanted to put a green roof on it. And everyone said, no, no, no, no, you won’t have the structure. You’ll have to get a structural engineer, etc., etc. But, you know, I was thinking some lovely little perennial. It’s a tiny little area. It’s maybe 20 by 20. But I thought, you know, something that would be low maintenance in the sun, up there, would give us a little less cooling needs inside since we’re on the top floor. So, when you go to retrofit a building, did you look at existing structure to understand what sort of weight it could carry? Like if joists carry a roof, what extra can they carry?

Molly: [00:05:37] Sure. Yeah. So, we don’t have structural engineers on staff. We, you know, a developer or a building owner would hire them as another consultant within the team. And it’s really important to have a structural engineer to evaluate the building so that we can ensure that it can hold even a lighter load to put the system on. But when our soil scientist invented this new type of growing media, the very first projects they looked at were incredibly limited loads. There used to be in Chicago, a small grocer called True Nature Foods, and True Nature wanted to grow food on their own rooftop and their joists, the structural engineers said their joist would only support an additional 12 pounds per square foot. So, insanely light, and no one had ever grown food in this capacity. But the soil scientists that that we work with, Michael Rabkin, he invented our soils. This was back in 2004, 2005 time period when he was faced with this question. He said that was the first project that they were trying to tackle, and he really developed a process to do this. And it’s all based on the concepts of terraforming. Terraforming is how do you grow soil? So, soil grows in nature, right? Rocks break down biological materials like microbes and earthworms and whatnot, grow in on and around them and organic matter builds up over time. So, you have a profile of biogeochemical processes happening. It’s where geology and biology meet, is what soils really are. And so, to grow soils is really to ask how do we introduce biological organisms to the geosphere in a way that we can make sure plants can thrive?

Molly: [00:07:44] And so, Michael, his work prior to omni ecosystems was with the U.S. Military asking how would we grow food on Mars? How would we grow food? Yeah, in otherwise unable to be grown upon areas. And so, if you were to watch the movie The Martian with Mike, it’s painful because he just goes, “That’s not how it works. That’s not how it works.” Apologies to Matt Damon, but the genesis of the soils at Omni Ecosystem differ significantly from how other providers within this industry ask: How do you grow on structure? How do you grow in lightweight? Because their approach is very much from an engineering or mechanical mindset. Let’s look at the geology and the chemistry of it. So, making sure that there’s certain rock substrate and then there’s a certain amount of NPK, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and other micronutrients. Whereas our approach is we can grow on any geologic substrate because we can add the appropriate biology in order to turn that rock into soil. And so, what we’ve done is we’ve just used a very, very lightweight rock and we grow within it, we turn it into soil on a rooftop. And so, our processes really mimic the ideas of ecological succession. So, when a forest fire goes through an area and decimates a forest, over the course of the next five decades, you will see a forest regrow there. And there’s these ecological steps that occur in growing back a forest. We take those biological processes, and we accelerate them. We put all the ingredients together so that nature can do what happens in after forest fire in five decades. We do it in 12 weeks on a rooftop.

Eve: [00:09:53] Wow. So, it’s actually on the roof. These were not the questions I was going to ask you. I’m fascinated. I know I like it. So, it’s actually a process that you implement on the rooftop.

Molly: [00:10:08] It is, yes. You know, we grow soil from bare rocks. So, on day one, the rooftop looks the worst that it will. And over time, it grows. And so, the most cost effective version of this is actually one of the most cost effective versions of greening rooftops anywhere on a market. It’s less expensive than other sort of monoculture systems. We’ve created a native wildflower meadow that can work anywhere in the Midwest and East up and down the Eastern Seaboard to really mimic nature, to create native habitats.

Eve: [00:10:27] Fascinating, how fascinating, and do different weights of soil give you the ability to grow different things?

Molly: [00:10:51] Weight, not so much depth. Yes. So, the deeper we would go with a soil profile, different plants can survive. So, there are a few misconceptions, however. Many plants don’t actually have tap roots or roots that need to go straight down. Most plants can adapt, and their roots can go sideways. So, lawns, native wildflower meadows, those can all exist in the shallowest three inches. When we try to create forests or tree canopy on roofs, then we do go to a deeper profile because typically our clients want to have mature trees on the roof. And so, we have to cover fully their root balls or their rooting mass with soil. And so, we might have to go up to a two foot depth, but it’s still very lightweight. For example, on our own headquarters, the building where I’m speaking to you today. We created a rooftop with a very structured Bosque, so a series of 15 maple trees in one area. There’s over 30 trees on the roof, but 15 maple trees in one area that, through the use of this lightweight soil, through the use of just optimizing just the right depths that need to be there. And, through the use of air spading, which is a process by which you remove excess soil from the root of a tree. Those things, we’ve allowed us to put this forest on the roof in 60 pounds per square foot. To do this with any other technology, or approach, would weigh 240.

Eve: [00:12:31] Wow.

Molly: [00:12:32] Yeah.

Eve: [00:12:33] When can I come and visit?

Molly: [00:12:34] Any time. Eve, come any time.

Eve: [00:12:36] It sounds really amazing. You’re sort of in the process of making your vision to democratize green roofs into reality. And just tell me a little bit about your company and when it launched and what products and services you offer.

Molly: [00:12:53] Yeah, absolutely. So, we started the company about 13 and a half years ago, in January of 2009. Great time to start a company in the real estate industry. If you remember, I’m being sarcastic. It was.

Eve: [00:13:08] Did she get a loan for a building then?

Molly: [00:13:11] Not so much. But we started the company then here in Chicago because there was quite a robust green roof industry here in Chicago. Thanks to Mayor Daley, his administration put forth a sustainable development policy that was the core of which was around green roofs. So, there was a great market here and we brought our products and services, which at first were really just green roofs. And so, we started with this lightweight soil, bringing it to market. And over time, we found that clients were asking us for more and more services in addition to the products, because it’s a unique approach. It’s not what most landscapers would do and how they would approach creating green space. And so over time, we added a construction arm and a maintenance arm and a design studio. Today, the core of our business is really around supplying our, the soils that we’ve invented and designing landscapes that do more than just look pretty but actively work to adapt and mitigate the climate change. We do still offer some of those construction maintenance services, but it’s less of the focus of the firm. And really what we’re trying to do is get these soils out to other contractors so that they can implement them because we realize there’s too much work to be done for us to try to become a big behemoth contractor. We really want to educate other contractors because our skill set is in inventing and understanding soils. And then our other core is designing with this advanced technology in mind.

Molly: [00:14:59] So through our design studio, we’ve really been able to push the industry forward in thinking about what can be done on structure and within landscape. So the rooftop that I mentioned before in the building I’m in where we have a quarter of the weight of a typical approach, that’s the first time that’s ever been done, and it’s in the staid and risk averse real estate architecture and construction industries. It’s unique to push forward that much through a client. So, our own design practice can push those boundaries and then lead the way for other designers to implement or to apply those to other projects. But another example of sort of work that we do now is not just on structure but on grade. So, one of the soils that we’ve created actually has an enormous amount of pore space. So typical soils have about 25% pore space, which means like air space or where air or water could be held within the geologic substrate. And our stormwater soil has 78 to 91% pore space.

Eve: [00:16:09] Interesting.

Molly: [00:16:10] Over three times the amount of space for water to be held. And this is really important because this becomes then a stormwater management tool using innovative soils. Projects where we are applying this are particularly in urban infill sites where there’s environmental contamination. So, when you have environmental contamination and you’re doing new construction, you often need to dig out that contaminated soil, haul it off somewhere, make it somebody else’s problem to dispose of. But hauling that off in order to create space for cisterns or underground vaults to manage your stormwater.

Molly: [00:16:49] So what we’ve been able to do is say we can cap the existing site, which is a typical approach to environmental remediation, to put a engineered barrier on a site and leave the contamination in situ. And then on top of that, we’re able to put this super spongy soil and it basically behaves like a green roof on ground. But in doing this, the soil, the contamination remains in place to minimize the amount of negative impact that might occur due to that contamination moving. We’re able to bring in this clean soil that manages the stormwater without digging down, and we’re able to often exceed the stormwater requirements of a site. So doing all of this in a couple of sites that we’ve studied and are implementing this on, we have found up to a 35% cost savings when you compare the grey infrastructure approach to the green infrastructure, meaning if you were to look at the environmental, civil and the landscape budgets together of the typical grey infrastructure solution, meaning with cisterns and hauling off contaminated soil, it would be 35% more expensive than just capping the site and putting a super spongy soil on. And the other benefit is that for that less money, we’re getting a more robust landscape.

Eve: [00:18:20] Yeah, and that sounds amazing.

Molly: [00:18:22] So bigger trees. Yeah. Yeah.

Eve: [00:18:25] So do you find that it’s useful where you have really poor soil, like solid clay or it’s really. I suppose you could treat that as contamination too, right?

Molly: [00:18:34] Yes, you could. Absolutely.

Eve: [00:19:37] Because there’s no water runoff. It’s just like a brick wall.

Molly: [00:18:40] Right.

Speaker1: [00:18:41] Just thinking here.

Molly: [00:18:43] Yeah.

Eve: [00:18:44] We’ve lost a lot of retail and there’s lots of strip malls with tons of parking that are standing empty. And I wonder all the time what they’re going to become. Can you just cover over asphalt or concrete?

Molly: [00:19:57] We can, yeah.

Eve: [00:19:59] Have you done that yet?

Molly: [00:19:00] We have actually, a version of that.

Eve: [00:19:04] Turn the mall, the local mall into a park with tiny little retail outlets around the hitch. I think I might go buy one.

Molly: [00:19:13] We absolutely can.

Eve: [00:19:14] That’s really interesting.

Molly: [00:19:19] Yeah. And we have yeah, we’ve put the soil on just straight on asphalt and concrete caps and very shallow, and we can grow plants out of it.

Eve: [00:19:26] Because, you know, that does a couple of things that first of all, it changes the nature of the space. And secondly, the demolition costs and hauling that material and putting it in landfill is just an awful thing to do, you know? So really, really interesting.

Molly: [00:19:42] Yeah. The carbon footprint, I think can particularly as developers start to consider and quantify better the carbon expenditure that they have with each of the decisions they make, it may become very cost effective because of the ability to offset all those hauling the carbon of all that hauling. Yeah.

Eve: [00:20:05] So where are you offering your products and services now? Just Chicago or have you gone national.

Molly: [00:20:11] We’re national. We do this work coast to coast. We have projects now in Phoenix and California, Minneapolis, Atlanta, DC, New York, Connecticut.

Eve: [00:20:26] Not outside the country?

Molly: [00:20:27] Well, we do have a very first couple of projects in the Grand Cayman this year. Everyone on our team is saying, I have to go to that project for site visit. And so, it’s very competitive to us and staff members there for a site visit. But right now, really solidly work within the continental United States. And we’re excited that we have a couple of opportunities to expand beyond that right now.

Eve: [00:20:51] Well, I have a project I’m working on and trying to get built in Australia and we could use that technology there. And the architect I’m working with would be fascinated by this. I mean, they have lighter soils there, but really nothing, nothing like this.

Molly: [00:21:06] Yeah.

Eve: [00:21:07] Are you getting towards your vision to democratize the green roof? How far do you have to go?

Molly: [00:21:12] Oh, we have a long way to go. Well, I think we are making headway, but this is a big endeavor. And it’s not just about us. It’s about everybody contributing to it. We definitely have a couple of decades more of work to do.

Eve: [00:21:26] Who are your customers?

Molly: [00:21:27] Yeah, good question. So, our customers are, for our landscape architecture studio, we are often either directly contracted by architects or ownership, depending on how a certain contract might be structured. For our products, we sell those to other contractors. So, roofers, landscapers and periodically general contractors who do work.

Eve: [00:21:55] So if I wanted to find someone in southwestern Pennsylvania, could I go to your site and see who you sold to?

Molly: [00:22:02] Oh, yeah. You know what? I don’t know if we have a list on the site for Southwest Pennsylvania, but, yeah, we have folks I can connect you with.

Eve: [00:22:11] Okay. Do you touch on who’s on your team? You’ve got a research division. Like what does your team look like to start a company and grow a company like this?

Molly: [00:22:21] Yeah, we have a very diverse team with quite a broad set of skill sets. So, we do have a soil scientist and, as well as a team of, I think about ten landscape architects and a couple of architects. We also have construction project managers. Obviously, HR and accounting and then we have horticulturalists.

Eve: [00:22:50] So your typical stuff.

Molly: [00:22:51] I started the company where I was wearing all the hats, you know somebody had to drive a forklift. It was me, right? If somebody had to pull weeds, it was me. Over time, we’ve grown, and we’ve really gone from a group of generalists who are willing to do anything to now, over the last few years, really having a group of specialists who bring expertise from their prior work. So, we have a director of operations now who comes to us after a career as an owner’s rep. So, she really understands the breadth of the industry and how to interact with our typical clients and how our team should be operating. Yeah, so a really, quite a diverse group of people. But what’s peculiar about our group and what we do is that we need this breadth, to enable to go deep in what we do, right? Because what we do is so unique, but it has to slot in across the industry from design and construction, also through stewardship, through the whole timeline, and be able to speak to each of the stakeholders which are obviously very diverse within the AC industry.

Eve: [00:24:04] And what’s the range and scale of projects?

Molly: [00:24:07] Oh yeah, we have very large projects which can be acres in size, like the Morton Salt Project where we’re applying our soils on grade to manage contamination and stormwater on that site. It’s a four-acre site and other projects are even larger. And then we have a contest among our sales team for the smallest project. And I think right now it’s about 26 square feet. But if you have anything smaller than that, they will be fighting tooth and nail to sell it to you.

Eve: [00:24:43] 26 square feet, that’s a little room.

Molly: [00:24:44] Yeah, exactly.

Eve: [00:24:25] No. So a little tiny little courtyard. Like a little urban courtyard somewhere. Tiny, weenie, little one.

Molly: [00:24:49] Yeah. That might have even been a set of planters, but yeah. But, more or less, our average project tends to be, I don’t know, between a half-acre and an acre of size.

Eve: [00:25:02] Residential, residential, commercial. Do you have residential customers who come to you?

Molly: [00:25:12] We do have residential customers that come to us. Our typical clients, however, are commercial and institutional. So, over the past ten years, much of our work has been commercial developers who are looking to green amenity deck space for their tenants. And we’re finding quite an increase in that after the pandemic, as people are thinking about how do we lure our folks back to the office? And green space is really critical, and adapting existing structures is very critical. And that’s obviously a sweet spot for us. Through the pandemic, many of our projects continued that were commercial, but we have seen quite an uptick in institutional work, health care and higher ed. Those portfolios for us are really increasing significantly. And then we do residential. Yeah, we do it and we enjoy it. But really, I think we’re a commercial outfit, so we kind of work with commercial clients.

Eve: [00:26:06] Interesting. Just to wrap this part of the conversation up, just tell me about one of your favorite projects that you worked on that was really very impactful.

Molly: [00:26:14] Sure. Well, we were lucky to build and supply and continue to maintain the green roof on Studio Gang Architects headquarters here in Chicago. And that was a really fun project for many reasons. Obviously, to get to work with Studio Gang is an honor, but also because of what we actually did on that project. So, they were looking at an existing building. I’m not remembering the vintage, but that was probably before the 1930s. And so, there was a limitation on the structural load. I want to say it was around 22 pounds a square foot that we were limited to. You know, Studio Gang wanted to put a wildflower meadow on the roof, a native meadow, as well as some trees. So, we worked with the structural engineer to identify the columns over which we could place trees, and then the remaining area, we sort of sloped the topography of the soil to manage the weight, keep it low, and then seeded the roof with a native wildflower meadow. And this was really, really fun to do and to think about the species that were up there. But one of the challenges that came up was that the project was delayed and what should have been seeded in the spring was seeded in the fall and late enough in the year that we weren’t sure if the plants could establish and protect the soil from wind scour through the winter. So, we spoke with the Studio Gang and said, hey, look, we can seed with the meadow, with the native species, and they can cold stratify help establish in the spring. But through the winter we’re not entirely sure. So, what we’d like to suggest is seeding the roof with a cold hardy annual so it could establish in the fall, cover the roof through the winter, and then we can mow it back in the spring. Or it could die back because it’s an annual and then the perennial plants could establish.

Eve: [00:28:20] Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. It’s like a blanket.

Molly: [00:28:23] Right. A cozy blanket. So, we ended up seeding with winter wheat. And winter wheat, we thought, I think at the time this was the first time we did this. We were like, let’s just throw a lot of wheat on this roof because we’ve got to make sure it stays in place. So, when we came back in the spring, it was a wheat field across this rooftop. It was so dense. And so, we asked, can we leave it up here rather than mow it? What do you think about just seeing what happens? And they were game. And so, we let it mature and in July we took some samples, sent them to a lab, and they were cleared for, basically there are certain type of fungus that can attack wheat and then it can be dangerous to humans if you were to consume it, but it came back clear on all this. So, we got a group of students together from a non-profit called After School Matters here in Chicago and One Summer Chicago, two different groups. But we worked with them to train them up. The students came to the rooftop with us. We harvested all the wheat. Well, actually, we harvested about 3000 square feet because it was a lot of work. So, we just did about 3000 square feet of this roof because Studio Gang wanted us to harvest with scissors so that we wouldn’t damage the underlying perennials that were coming up.

Eve: [00:29:51] That’s a lot of work.

Molly: [00:29:51] It was so much work. So, the students and we, like everybody, like our staff was out there or the students and we all were out there with a pair of scissors doing this. We brought the harvest back to our headquarters at the time. Another group of students helped us winnow, separating the chaff from the grain, and they came up with all different ways to do this. They took boards and beat the boards together to break up the seed heads. They took a bucket and filled it up and put a chain in there on a drill and beat apart the wheat. And then they took fans and blew the chaff away from the grain. So, like all this stuff, and over the course of three weeks they processed all of this wheat and we had 66 pounds of grain and a local artisanal miller milled it into a high grade pastry flour. And we had over 60 pounds of flour, which then a local baker worked with the students to bake it into cookies that they sold to raise money for After School Matters and One Summer Chicago.

Eve: [00:30:59] That’s really a lovely story. That’s a lot work.

Molly: [00:31:02] It was so much work, so much work. But it did really pay off because a few things came of that. One is the students were hilarious and incredible and so much fun to work with. And one of the students was like an aspiring stand-up comedian, and he put a whole bit together about like how insane it is where cookies and bread come from, which was awesome. And then at the time, the mayor of Chicago was Rahm Emanuel, and he came to our headquarters to celebrate their graduation from this non-profit, this student summer program that they were in. And there were 30,000 kids across Chicago that were in this program, and about 30 of them were here, were with us. And he came to their graduation, and he was supposed to be at our office for like 30 minutes. He spent almost 2 hours just hanging out with the kids. It was so cool. They gave him a pound of flour. And then, you know, Studio Gang’s rooftop ended up winning an award for this project. And today it’s a native wildflower meadow. So, after that first season, the story.

Eve: [00:32:18] They didn’t keep the wheat? Because wheat is beautiful.

Molly: [00:32:20] It is. It really is. But they wanted the native wildflower meadow and so they let it go back to that. And every year now they do a BioBlitz where they bring out a group of biologists and study like what are the species they’re seeing and what’s happening on the roof. So, it’s interesting to see that this is a space, a very urban space. It’s right at the intersections of Ashland in Milwaukee, in Chicago. It’s a very dense intersection, but three floors up, all this ecology has happened in the past five or six years. You know, it’s pretty impactful.

Eve: [00:32:57] It’s pretty fabulous.

Molly: [00:33:18] And then we also learned something very cool, which I love the data behind what we find out on each project. So, here’s a project where it’s about 5000 square feet. We harvested 3000 square feet of wheat and we got 66 pounds of flour. So, what we know now is that for every 50 square feet of a green roof, you could have 1 pound of flour grown. And this is important when we think about how do we scale this up, right? So across the city of Chicago, we worked with Perkins and Will to actually study how many square feet of green roof could ever be built and learned that from each of these data points of all of our projects, that little bits like how much, how much stormwater on this project, how much we do on this project and whatnot. We learned that, you know, if every year you harvested wheat on all the, all the eligible rooftops in Chicago for green roofs you could get, what’s the number of pounds? It’s almost 10 million pounds of flour and that of grain. And that grain could turn into nearly 50 million bottles of beer a year. That is pretty dang cool.

Eve: [00:35:38] Well, so I have two more questions for you. Clearly, you’re really passionate about this. How did you come to it? What’s your background?

Molly: [00:35:09] Oh, yeah, I know enough to get myself really in trouble. So, I studied Earth Systems for my undergraduate degree and my graduate degree. So, I got an undergrad and a master’s from Stanford in Earth Systems. And my focus there was within geology and narrowly within geology, I took a lot of soils and biogeochemistry classes, but I really just knew enough to get myself in trouble. I didn’t. I’m not a soil scientist. After my master’s degree, I ended up going to work for a general contractor as a carpenter for a couple of years just to do something different and be, I wanted to be up in Seattle where I could ski and climb every weekend, and after a few years of that, kind of wanted to go back into working in the environment but thought about, I was so interested in construction and how the built environment was, operates, but I really love soils and a couple of conversations some friends said, what about green roofs? So, I got a fellowship to work in Germany and learned how they build green roofs over there.

Eve: [00:36:23] It’s the country of green,

Molly: [00:36:25] Right, yeah.

Eve: [00:36:26] I mean, they separate out all their recycling. You can’t put glass bottles in except for certain hours because it might disturb the neighbors. I mean, they are so organized.

Molly: [00:36:37] Yeah, yeah, they are.

Eve: [00:36:40] Very precise. Yeah.

Molly: [00:36:41] Yeah. And so, I went over there, and I was there for about a year and a half learning, learning about the German green roof industry, which at the time really was far ahead of the United States. And so, I learned a lot there about green roofs, best practices, came back to the United States and just very fortuitously met Michael Repkin within that first few months of coming back, or being in Chicago. And it’s, his soil science background and me to know enough that he was speaking the truth, but not enough to be able to do it myself. We teamed up and really created Omni Ecosystems from that.

Eve: [00:37:20] How fabulous.

Molly: [00:37:21] Yeah. And over the past 13 years, in some ways we’ve leapfrogged what Germany did. You know, German green roofs remain very much about seeding, which is a monoculture and non-native to most of Europe and North America. In our work is, how can we go lightweight, how can we manage more stormwater, how can we become more biodiverse? But none of that would be possible without understanding what they developed in Germany and building upon it.

Eve: [00:37:48] Absolutely fascinating. So, what’s next for you? What’s next? There’s got to be something next brewing.

Molly: [00:37:55] Oh, boy. We always have little things brewing, but, you know, what we’re really excited about right now is scaling up the solutions we’ve created so that others can implement this. We recognize that we are on a very short timeline to mitigate and adapt to climate change. And the soils that we’ve invented and the design approach that we have has really kind of shown people, hey, there’s a path, it’s proven, this isn’t a pilot study anymore. We have this done and figured out. And so, what we’re working actively on right now is scaling and empowering others to use this technology. And that’s why I said earlier, our construction and maintenance teams are small and mighty, but really what they’re about is learning how these, our systems are best implemented and managed so that we can train others to do it. So, we’ve now built training programs. We have more than 50 contractors around the United States, either fully trained and implementing our systems or in the process of getting trained up. And that to us is really exciting because our hands can only do so much. But getting this technology to others.

Eve: [00:39:16] Now is exciting because I would want to know who they are. I mean, I hope you have a database.

Molly: [00:39:21] We do. And to your point earlier, it’s not on our website yet. But that’s part of the, part of our plan over the course of the next year is to build that up. And we want to make sure it’s just easy, easy for people to deploy this technology and use it.

Eve: [00:39:39] Well, this has been absolutely delightful. I’m in awe. How interesting.

Molly: [00:39:43] Thank you, Eve. It’s a treat to speak with you. And I do hope you’ll come visit sometime.

Eve: [00:39:47] I’m definitely going to. When this latest COVID wave settles down again, I’ll try and come to Chicago. I’d really love to see what you’re doing. Thank you so much.

Molly: [00:39:17] Thank you, Eve.

Eve: [00:39:24] That was Molly Meyer, founder of Omni Systems. She’s developed a brand new approach to greening roofs, an engineered soil that weighs just 15 pounds per square foot. That’s just 12.5% of your garden soil, which averages 120 pounds per square foot. And it’s not only meadows that she’s growing, but trees in her lightweight soil. I’m blown away.

Eve: [00:40:40] I hope you enjoyed today’s guest and our deep dive. You can find out more about this episode or others you might have missed on the show notes page at RethinkRealEstateforGood.co. There’s lots to listen to there. You can support this podcast by sharing it with others, posting about it on social media or leaving a rating and review. To catch all the latest from me you can follow me on LinkedIn. Even better, if you’re ready to dabble in some impact investing yourself head on over to wefunder.com/smallchange, where you can invest directly in Small Change and our mission to democratize capital formation to create impact in commercial real estate development. A special thanks to David Allardice for his excellent editing of this podcast and original music, and a big thanks to you for spending your time with me today. We’ll talk again soon. But for now, this is Eve Picker signing off to go make some change.

Image courtesy of Molly Meyer

Superpowers.

December 9, 2022

“What do you think of as your superpower?” asks Devin. “My superpower is when someone says “no” to me, that just makes me go harder” says Eve. “Seriously, I have incredible stick-to-it-iveness. My superpower is endurance.”

Listen to the podcast for more about Eve and her superpowers!

Logo from Superpowers for Good

Local Spaces. Crowdfunded.

November 28, 2022

Crowdfunding can take many forms — from donation-based to investment-based, supporting small and large businesses or bricks and mortar and even civic projects.

We’ve always loved Spacehive, the earliest civic crowdfunding platform to emerge, founded by Chris Gourlay in London.

Spacehive helps locals and communities bring their ideas to life through crowdfunding. As the world’s first civic-centric crowdfunding platform it has grown into a platform that has helped to deliver 1,950 projects across the United Kingdowm. When an individual or community lists a project on the platform, Spacehive provides matching funds from councils, foundations and companies, with £3.4m currently available from various partners.

To date Spacehive has raised £26m through the platform with a success rate of 55 percent for projects listed. As well as bringing a plethora of ideas to life these projects have created jobs, seen trees planted, walls painted, public squares created, community centers built and improved, sculptures installed, and phone boxes converted to mini art galleries.

Projects raising funds right now include solar panels for a 152-year-old open-air swimming pool; a playground redevelopment; restoration of a Community Center floor; the conversion of a double-decker bus as a community space; a new athletics track; a Moonraking Festival; a croquet clubhouse and a second movie screen for a local cinema.

“We envision a world where everyone can shape their local area to create places that make people happy, proud and prosperous.” says Chris. “We want to make it easy for people to improve their local area. Our technology brings together people, businesses, government and foundations to collaboratively fund projects that communities want.”

If you want to learn more about Spacehive from Chris Gourlay, listen in to this podcast.

Image of Spachive website

100% Community.

November 16, 2022

Tosha Wilson was born in the community she serves and is a proud graduate of Evanston Township High School in Evanston, Illinois. She received her bachelor’s degree from Illinois State University in Communications and her master’s degree in Children’s Law and Police from Loyola University School of Law.

In 2018, Tosha Wilson and Jacqui White had the idea of opening The Laundry Cafe (TLC), a laundromat that incorporates comfortable seating, fresh brewed coffee, a book room and a yoga and meditation space. While trying to turn their business idea into a reality, they ran into an issue with acquiring capital. They were turned down for the small business loans they applied for. In an interview with the Chicago Tribune, Tosha said: “Two professionals with decent jobs (and) good credit scores, and the bank basically told us, ‘You don’t have enough experience. I just thought, `How in the world do you beat the red tape to get a dream to unfold?’”

In frustration Tosha founded Boosting Black Business, an internet-based community group that helped raise over $100,000 for Black owned start-up companies throughout Chicagoland in 2020. Heidi Stevens of The Chicago Tribune, named her as one of the “10 People that Gave Me Hope in 2020.”

This grew into her current role, as a co-developer of an $8 million project in Evanston called The Aux, which is dedicated to healing, wellness, racial equity and entrepreneurship. The Laundry Café will open as one of the businesses inside The Aux. 

Tosha is deeply involved in the Evanston community and has been a part of many outreach programs for youth, coaches middle school girls’ basketball, and is currently a board member with two great Evanston organizations. She is also a police Sergeant with the Evanston Police Department and has been with the department for over 20 years.  She became the first Evanston born African American woman to be a Sergeant with the Evanston Police Department following her great-Uncle William Logan Jr. who was the first African American from Evanston to do so. In her spare time, sleeping, playing with her puppy, catching up with friends and watching TV is what she does to relax. She is also the mother of her two sisters, who she adopted 21 years ago, and they have challenged her along the way to be a better person, sister, mom, community member and police officer.

Read the podcast transcript here

Eve Picker: [00:00:15] Hi there. Thanks for joining me on Rethink Real Estate. For Good. I’m Eve Picker and I’m on a mission to make real estate work for everyone. I love real estate. Real estate makes places good or bad, rich or poor, beautiful or not. In this show, I’m interviewing the disruptors, those creative thinkers and doers that are shrugging off the status quo in order to build better for everyone. And speaking of building better, I’m very excited to share that my company, Small Change, is now raising capital through a community round that is open to the public. Small Change is a leading equity crowdfunding platform for impact investment in real estate. For as little as $250, anyone 18 and over can invest in Small Change, helping to fuel our growth as we disrupt the old boys club of capital that routinely ignores so many qualified people and projects. Please visit wefunder.com/smallchange to review the full details of our raise and to make an investment if you can. And remember, investing is risky. Don’t invest more than you can afford to lose.

Eve: [00:01:50] Today, I’m talking with Tosha Wilson. Born in the city of Evanston, Illinois, and now a police officer there. In 2018, Tosha and her cousin, Jackie White, had the idea of opening the Laundry Café, a laundromat that incorporates comfortable seating, fresh brewed coffee, a book room and a yoga and meditation space. But finding a loan defeated them. They were turned down for every small business loan they applied to. In an interview with the Chicago Tribune, Tosha said, “two professionals with decent jobs and good credit scores and the bank basically told us, you don’t have enough experience. I just thought, how in the world do you beat the red tape to get a dream to unfold?” In frustration, Tosha founded Boosting Black Business, an Internet based community group that helped raise over $100,000 for Black-owned startup companies throughout Chicagoland in 2020. Heidi Stephens of the Chicago Tribune named her as one of the ten people that gave me hope in 2020. This grew into her current role as a co-developer of an $8 million project in Evanston called The Aux, planned as a 100% community owned Black business hub. You’ll want to hear more.

Eve: [00:03:26] If you’d like to join me in my quest to rethink real estate, there are two simple things you can do. Share this podcast or head over to rethinkrealestateforgood.co and subscribe. You’ll be the first to hear about my podcasts, blog posts and other goodies.

Eve: [00:03:49] Hi, Tosha. Thanks so much for joining me today.

Tosha Wilson: [00:03:52] Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Eve: [00:03:55] I know you’re a police officer in the city of Evanston, Illinois, and that you’ve been plotting your next act. I also read that you’ve been heard to say, beyond being a police officer, I’m a Black woman and I understand social injustice. I wanted to ask you what social injustice means to you, just as a starting point.

Tosha: [00:04:16] I mean, from a starting point, I have been a police officer for about 20 years. I’m a sergeant now. But watching my parents both suffer addictions in the crack cocaine epidemic through the nineties, starting in the late eighties. So, I could just see how my parents were kind of criminalized versus just say, people who have meth addictions now and it’s considered medical and not criminal. So, there are just different aspects of how I see the world from these different bubbles and how those things try to, they actually pushed me to be a better police officer, understanding social ills, whether it’s how we got involved in a Laundry Cafe and how it turned into the Aux due to trying to get loans and being denied and. You know, schooling.

Eve: [00:05:10] There’s many, many aspects to this.

Tosha: [00:05:12] Many aspects, yeah.

Eve: [00:05:13] That touch your lives. I’m going to ask you about this, as well. So, what does community mean to you then?

Tosha: [00:05:20] Community means everything to me. Like I feel like we are in this age of social media. There’s nothing communal about it. Like we’re not touching each other, we’re not hanging with each other, we’re not laughing together. We’re sending laughing emojis, but we don’t feel like that connection. And then I feel like we have lost that. And community used to be, if Eve was my neighbor and I was outside doing something I wasn’t supposed to be doing, Eve had permission to say, Tosha, get in here and let me talk to you, and everyone would support you.

Eve: [00:05:55] And more than that, we actually had front porches, right, back then?

Tosha: [00:05:58] Yes. Yes. And we’d wave at people driving by. And I don’t even know my neighbors that way. It’s terrible.

Eve: [00:06:04] Oh, that’s awful. Yeah. Well, I don’t either. So, yeah. So, you have been plotting your next act. And the first part of that was the Laundry Cafe. What is the Laundry Cafe?

Tosha: [00:06:19] Well, the Laundry Cafe was something I saw, like, just kind of surfing the internet, not looking for any business ideas. Let me, mind you, I was not looking for business ideas. But I saw some laundromats in Europe that were just super cool. They were like the spot, not like these nasty, bug infested, no one’s maintaining them sort of laundry where you go in there to clean your clothes in a dirty place. And I’m like, Can you imagine if you could just do like this mundane, silly chore, but you could kind of hang out with people, drink coffee, sit on your computer, do homework? And I’m like, Ooh, what if we did, like both? And so, I had been thinking about it, and then my poor cousin, I just dragged her right on into this. And thankfully she was supportive. She became my partner. But we decided, like, our community needed this place, like we had so many places to go to as a kid to just hang out. And we thought, why not Evanston? Why not now?

Eve: [00:07:18] So, in building this business, which isn’t open yet, we’re going to get to that later, what are the challenges you’ve been faced with?

Tosha: [00:07:26] Well, when we thought, Let’s make it an LLC, let’s get started. Let’s make this a real thing, we’ll need some laundry equipment, obviously. So, we were willing to go to the bank. Throw our Social Security numbers on paper and go for this loan for equipment. And the bank said no. And we’re thinking, well, why not? We have the collateral, we have the credit scores, we have jobs. You know, we’re secure in so many things. And they said, well, you don’t have laundry experience. We’re like, Oh, is that is that the end? I’m like, we’re not washing the clothes. The machines are. But, you know, I think we have pretty good customer service, you know, being a police officer.

Eve: [00:08:10] It’s all about customer service, right.

Tosha: [00:08:12] It’s a customer service business. And I’m thinking, we do this all day in the worst situation, and I don’t think laundry would top what we deal with. So, we didn’t understand and it kind of got out that we were denied and the community swarmed and they were disappointed, and they brought the story to other people. And that’s kind of how we started surfing our way towards The Aux and the connections to different people.

Eve: [00:08:40] So, just to finish up that story, did you ever find a bank or is that still out there?

Tosha: [00:08:46] No, we never found a bank. We never went back. We were kind of…

Eve: [00:08:51] Very disheartening.

Tosha: [00:08:52] Yeah, we were just discouraged and we’re like, okay, let’s take a step back. Maybe this is not what we’re supposed to be doing. Maybe this is not the time. And that’s kind of where we just left it. But I did create, you know, a little community group on Facebook Boosting Black Business. Because I felt that during the pandemic, if we’re being told no, other people are being told no. So, I was able to raise like $110,000 for nine other businesses just sitting in this room saying, I want to help someone else, and the community, that’s why I believe in community. When you have the credibility and community, they show up for you. And they showed up for me and they helped boost a lot of businesses and it was really cool.

Eve: [00:09:40] That’s really fabulous. So, but then there’s a really bigger story here, and that’s what we’re getting into. And that’s the Laundry Cafe’s planned home, because along the way, you met someone planning something much bigger for Black businesses. So, where is the Laundry Cafe going to be located and what’s it called? Tell me about it.

Tosha: [00:10:02] So, the Laundry Cafe will be inside a bigger facility called The Aux. And we met Laurie Lazar and Julie Kaufman. And when I say we, it was myself and a couple of friends. We were sitting in a restaurant, and I promise you, I don’t know these women from anyone else in the world. We’re just sitting there. I’m eating, I’m about to put a sandwich in my mouth and someone says, oh, that’s Tosha Wilson and that’s Tiffini Holmes, who’s another co-developer with the Aux, and we’d like to introduce you and then go, Wait, did someone tell you about us this morning? And sure enough, someone had called me earlier that day to say, I want to introduce you to Laurie and Julie. And I said, okay, you know, whatever, whenever. 11 hours later, we just kind of literally physically bumped into each other. And we have not been apart in the last two years. And along the way we came up with the Aux, which is short for the Auxiliary Chord. And that’s why you have this little thing here.

Eve: [00:11:06] She’s got a, we’re not going to do a video. But Tasha is wearing a t-shirt with a nice logo.

Tosha: [00:11:14] The logo with the Aux cord.

Eve: [00:11:16] Yes.

Tosha: [00:11:17] Because we, as people, have to plug in, you have to plug back into each other, plug back into just connecting. And that’s kind of like the symbolism of the Aux cord and what it always has done for us before Bluetooth and all we always had to plug in.

Eve: [00:11:32] Yes, it’s true. So, the Aux cord. So, what are you planning? This group of people who are now, who now got together two years ago?

Tosha: [00:11:41] Well, what we’re planning is a business hub for healing, wellness and racial equity. So, we’re using real estate. We have purchased a building that will be located in Evanston, Illinois, and that building will help us empower our community. So, through equity sharing, they will now, soon to be owners in what we’re building. We don’t want to just build this and kind of disappear, but we want people to know that if you have shares in this, if you have equity in this now, you want it to succeed. You want to come there, you want to wash clothes there, there’s a workout facility and Wellbeing Chicago. You can get culinary classes from Chef Q’s kitchen, get your hair done and embrace your crown, wash your clothes at the Laundry Cafe, do yoga with the Growing Season, go to a business class with Sunshine Enterprises. So, we have created a circle of things that people can come enjoy and we will have pop up shop. So hey, if you’re that person who just cannot afford the brick and mortar right now, you know, we’re going to provide a safe space for the community to come and buy your products and build your confidence and show you how great you are. And that’s our plan.

Eve: [00:12:58] That’s the big audacious plan. And the building is a warehouse, right? A vacant warehouse that you’ll be converting.

Tosha: [00:13:05] Yes. It was a stinky vegetable cleaning factory. So, when you go in there, you’ll still get hit with that smell. Thank God they’re starting some moves in there. But they used to clean potatoes. And, you know, anything you can think of that went out to the local restaurants, but they needed more space. So, they outgrew this 16,500 square foot building. And it was sitting there for a few years. People tried to buy it. It’s really oddly designed in a very odd space. We’re going to call it the Hidden Gem, because you have to look for it. But we walked in, and I want you to know, we ignored this building for quite some time. We had a previous building, but we don’t know what really happened. But we were going to make a deal. And then we went into the building and shortly thereafter the owner says, I don’t want to sell it to you.

Eve: [00:13:58] Oh.

Tosha: [00:13:59] And real estate in this capacity is very hard to find. So, we were really shook by that and we had to kind of get back on board and find somewhere else. And that’s how we landed in this facility.

Eve: [00:14:11] So, this stinky warehouse. Walk me through the spaces that you’re going to create, because you’re going to have to really rip the guts out of it and start over, right?

Tosha: [00:14:21] Yeah. So, we’re going to rip some guts for sure. We’re going to take some things and rearrange it. But overall, we have a laundromat, which will be us. You can get your hair done at Embrace Your Crown. There’s the Small Business Academy, Sunshine Enterprises, which I am a graduate of, my partner, Jackie, is a graduate of. The other co-developer, Tiffini Holmes, is a graduate and instructor at Sunshine Enterprises. We just created a great deal between Sunshine Enterprises, Northwestern University and the City of Evanston to make sure we have that incubation space that is supported by strong entities. Chef Q is a CNN hero. She fed so many people during the pandemic and CNN recognized her. And she’ll be in her kitchen, in her commercial kitchen in the back of the building. And she also has the hidden dinner.

Eve: [00:15:22] Oh, yeah. The private, little private dinner pop up.

Tosha: [00:15:25] I went in, and it was fantastic. The Growing Season, which is our fiscal agent for the Aux right now, and that is with Laurie Lazar. And she is about meditation and mindfulness and all the great things that just bring you back to a space of relaxation. And then there’s Wellbeing Chicago, where they will have clinicians for mental illness, therapy for self-esteem, working out, anything you can think of that completes the whole being, Wellbeing Chicago is focused on that. And so, and then we have pop up spaces for.

Eve: [00:16:08] For other businesses.

Tosha: [00:16:10] Yeah absolutely.

Eve: [00:16:11] And what about office space? Do you have co-working spaces as well?

Tosha: [00:16:15] Absolutely.

Eve: [00:16:15] So it’s really a complete business center and are all the businesses are going to be Black owned? Is that the goal?

Tosha: [00:16:23] That is the goal. But we’re also understanding of demographics, how demographics change. Being aware of what’s changing in Evanston, we’re totally aware of that. I think our upbringing in Evanston showed us that type of realization 70 years ago. So, our focus is intentional. I’m learning in this process that sometimes it feels odd to say that your focus is Black intended, and I never thought that that would be like a subject matter that I was kind of stuck on because I’ve gone to Hispanic communities where there’s a strong community presence and you love it. You want to be there; you want to eat their food and buy their products. You know, in Chicago, you can go to any neighborhood and it’s a strong base. And then as we’re trying to create this base, people say, well, are you going to have other cultures in there? And then you want to say, Yes, of course. But our intention is, you know, Black-owned businesses. Yeah, absolutely.

Eve: [00:17:30] Yeah, I understand that. It sounds like you love diversity, but really the point of this is to support Black-owned businesses that don’t get it, that don’t get a chance in other ways. Right.

Tosha: [00:17:42] I mean, when do you stop and are you able to say, you know, I’m going to go over to this neighborhood where I know there’s a strong Black presence where I can get the food and the culture, and I don’t know a place.

Eve: [00:17:53] Or even just support a Black owned business, right?

Tosha: [00:17:56] Yeah, I don’t know a place. Yeah. So, it’s important.

Eve: [00:17:59] That’s great. So, what’s the team? Who’s the team doing this?

Tosha: [00:18:04] Oh, the team. Oh, our lovely team. So, The Aux team is myself, Tiffini Holmes, Jacqueline White, Gabori Partee, Lori Laser, we’re the co developers and we have a great support system and Juli Kaufmann from Fix Development out of Milwaukee and her partner Jessie Tobin, who’s also with Fix Development and she’s actually from Evanston. So, the weird thing is, we didn’t know Jessie and then once we met, we’re like, hey, did you go to school with us? You know, sort of thing. So, it was great. So, that’s our team.

Eve: [00:18:40] They really are pretty amazing, Fix Development. I’ve worked with a lot of developers and they’re pretty extraordinary.

Tosha: [00:18:47] Yes.

Eve: [00:18:47] So, the really interesting thing to me is the financing structure, which I’d love to talk to you about, because, as you know, we have a crowdfunding platform. And what I’ve been seeing over the last year is more and more developers coming to us playing with this idea of community ownership. And I would say the Aux is the first one that really, really gets at it in a wholehearted way. So, tell us about how this $8 Million project is going to be financed.

Tosha: [00:19:19] Well, due to inflation, it went from 6 to 8.

Eve: [00:19:22] Yeah, that’s…

Tosha: [00:19:23] Same structure. So, we used community-based funds, meaning like state, federal, city backing. So, we got $1,000,000 from the city of Evanston, $1.5 million from the state of Illinois.

Eve: [00:19:38] These are grants, right? They’re not loans they’re grants.

Tosha: [00:19:40] Absolutely. We are not interested in loans.

Eve: [00:19:43] These must be around job creation, these grants, right?

Tosha: [00:19:46] Yes. Yes, absolutely. So, there were ARPA funds. There were things to get the base of business back going. So, that was pretty much our angle and saying that a lot of Black businesses lost during COVID and we need to rebuild and be strong. We’re raising money by using state, federal and city funding. So, we have received funds from that. Then we’ve also had strong backing with philanthropic donors who support this project and move forward. And then we also have a section where we’re going to use crowdfunding for equity ownership in the building, and all three of those had to be strong. So far, we’ve raised a nice chunk of change from our overall 8 million and we’re very proud of our endeavor because in last year around this time we were like, what are we doing? And in that 365 days we worked pretty hard and we’re doing very well, and we think we can pull it together in this last stretch of equity ownership and additional philanthropic funds and the state and city, they’re still supporting us.

Eve: [00:21:01] That’s fantastic. So, my understanding is that anyone who invests is going to have a vote in the management of the building, and those investors will eventually own the building 100% so the philanthropy and those donors and the state and the feds won’t have any ownership say. So, you’re going to be a self-managed self-owned really community owned project which is astounding.

Tosha: [00:21:32] That is correct. That is correct. Thank you.

Eve: [00:21:35] It’s really pretty fabulous. And where are you in, like, building. And I mean, what’s the plan? The timeline.

Tosha: [00:21:43] Well, actually, later today, of all things, we’re meeting with the architects for our final final. We always get that email that says final, drawings and moving on to the construction. So, once we get the permits going with the city. and that’s always a challenge…

Eve: [00:22:03] Always difficult, yeah.

Tosha: [00:22:04] Yeah, anyone who knows, and the city of Evanston is very diligent in how they make sure whether it’s curb cuts to where this tree is going to be planted. They are very diligent, which makes the city beautiful. But that is our next phase in just getting the process going. They’ve been testing the roof and the sewers and everything and we are done with that and we’re so happy.

Eve: [00:22:28] That’s pretty fabulous. So, what’s the goal for groundbreaking and what’s the goal for opening the doors and moving in and for quitting your job?

Tosha: [00:22:40] That’s an even longer story. We’re quitting the job, like groundbreaking we’re looking for the end of this year. So, end of this month into November, we plan on having the groundbreaking. Our goal is to open a year from now around Thanksgiving-ish time. We know it’s kind of probably hard to open during cold winters in Chicago and the Chicagoland area, but that is our goal right now, hoping that permits go through smoothly and we can get the process going.

Tosha: [00:23:13] It would be great to have a Christmas like opening festival. Wouldn’t it be fabulous?

Tosha: [00:23:18] That kind of would be cool. That would be nice.

Eve: [00:23:20] What’s your ultimate goal with this building and is it the last one this group will build or are you already thinking ahead?

Tosha: [00:23:29] We thank the process for making us co-developers, we’ve learned a lot. And do I think I could do this again to my partners? When you’re in the middle of it, you’re like, absolutely not. But I think when we see these doors open, the people happy, businesses thriving, community, they’re laughing, engaged, supportive. I feel like, yes, we could do it again and Fix Development has given us a great blueprint for that. Things that we can fix, things that we can make better, things that we’ll do just the same. So, I do think our overall goal is to win, you know, just win, and let kids see that. I know a place, you know what I mean? I know a place. We went to Sherman, Phoenix, which is one of Fix Development’s projects in Milwaukee, and that’s the old BMO Bank that was burned down and, after a police officer shot a young black man and there was a lot of protesting and civil unrest. And after this building burns down, they recreate this building.

Tosha: [00:24:33] And I walked in, Eve, and I could not believe what I saw. And I’m from, you know, a city that claims to be the most progressive city in America. And when I walked into this place, I had never seen anything like it. Where Black businesses were everywhere. And it was love. It was, I don’t, every face imaginable was sitting down and just being one. The police officers are sitting down eating. You know, there are police stations across the street. So, they came over to get coffee. You know, they are doing it right in Milwaukee at the Sherman Phoenix. And why can’t we do that the same way? Why does it have to be something I’ve never seen before? Why does it have to be something you’ve never seen before? So, we want to make it normal. Our goal is to say places like the Aux and the Sherman Phoenix are, you know, it’s like the other businesses in the world. We’re just business and good business.

Eve: [00:25:32] I love the idea of making it normal. I think that’s…

Tosha: [00:25:35] Yeah, I want to make it normal.

Eve: [00:25:36] …really, what we’re aiming for.

Tosha: [00:25:37] That’s our goal.

Eve: [00:25:38] I can’t wait to see it. I hope I get invited to the opening.

Tosha: [00:25:41] Oh, God, yes, you will be there.

Eve: [00:25:45] And good luck with your fundraising. It’s a really fabulous project and I’m excited we’re hosting it.

Tosha: [00:25:52] Thank you.

Eve: [00:25:53] Thanks so much.

Tosha: [00:25:53] We’re thankful. So thankful.

Eve: [00:26:02] I hope you enjoyed today’s guest and our deep dive. You can find out more about this episode or others you might have missed on the show notes page at RethinkRealEstateforGood.co. There’s lots to listen to there. You can support this podcast by sharing it with others, posting about it on social media or leaving a rating and review. To catch all the latest from me you can follow me on LinkedIn. Even better, if you’re ready to dabble in some impact investing yourself head on over to wefunder.com/smallchange, where you can invest directly in Small Change and our mission to democratize capital formation to create impact in commercial real estate development. A special thanks to David Allardice for his excellent editing of this podcast and original music, and a big thanks to you for spending your time with me today. We’ll talk again soon. But for now, this is Eve Picker signing off to go make some change.

Image courtesy of Tosha Wilson

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