Rethink Real Estate. For Good.

Offering

We Own This.

Lyneir Richardson is working to empower entrepreneurs and strengthen economic conditions in urban and underserved areas across the United States. He wears multiple hats, investing in commercial real estate, educating and advising entrepreneurs and MBA students, consulting corporations, foundations and government agencies, and structuring deals to get capital to Black entrepreneurs and real estate developers.

Lyneir is CEO of The Chicago TREND Corporation, a social enterprise funded by prestigious impact investors to catalyze urban retail development. TREND has deployed over $25M of impact capital, owns four shopping centers, and assisted numerous Black retail operators and commercial real estate developers in cities across the country. Lyneir recently raised $330,000 in equity from 130 Black, small and/or impact investors for a shopping center in Baltimore, MD.

This project is at the core of  his strategy – to build Black wealth through community-owned shopping centers. He’s planning to buy 16 community shopping centers and invite 1,000 small investors to co-own them with his company, Chicago TREND. To accomplish this, Lyneir and his team have developed a rigorous set of criteria for finding and buying shopping centers in majority Black Demographics that are on the cusp of change, and offer added value over a time. His plan is to empower Black entrepreneurs and community residents to have a meaningful ownership stake in the revitalization and continued vibrancy of commercial corridors and Black shopping districts.

Lyneir wants every neighbor to be able to say “We Own This”

Lyneir is an Assistant Professor of Professional Practice in the Department of Management and Global Business at Rutgers Business School in Newark, NJ and serves as the Executive Director of the Center for Urban Entrepreneurship and Economic Development. He leads capacity-building programs that have assisted 600+ racially diverse entrepreneurs and launched the Black and Latino Investment Fund of New Jersey.

Lyneir served as the Chief Executive Officer of the primary economic development corporation in Newark, NJ, for Mayor Cory Booker and Mayor Ras Baraka. As Vice President of Urban Development at General Growth Properties, Inc., he led the national initiative to improve shopping centers in ethnic neighborhoods in U.S. cities. Early in his career, Lyneir was named a U.S. Small Business Administration “Young Entrepreneur of the Year”. Lyneir started his career as a corporate attorney at the First National Bank of Chicago. Lyneir graduated from Bradley University and the University of Chicago Law School. He is a member of the Urban Land Institute and the International Council of Shopping Centers. He has served on the Board of Directors of the International Economic Development Council, New Growth Innovation Network, Equal Measure, Southland Development Authority, Investor Advocates for Social Justice, Cook County Land Bank, and many other nonprofit organizations. He has served as Vice Chairman of the Illinois Housing Development Authority Trust Fund Board and as a Commissioner on the City of Chicago Planning Commission. He is a Nonresident Senior Fellow at Brookings Metro, the Brookings Institution. He is a proud (but slow) finisher of the Chicago Marathon.

Read the podcast transcript here

Eve Picker: [00:00:09] 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: [00:01:59] Lyneir Richardson is building Black wealth through community owned shopping centers. He’s planning to buy 16 community shopping centers and invite 1000 small investors to co-own them with his company, Chicago Trend. To accomplish this, Lyneir and his team have developed a rigorous set of criteria for finding and buying shopping centers in majority Black demographics that are on the cusp of change and that offer added value over time. His plan is to empower Black entrepreneurs and community residents to have a meaningful ownership stake in the revitalization and continued vibrancy of commercial corridors and Black shopping districts. Lyneir wants every neighbor to be able to say, we own this. 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 and go to rethinkrealestateforgood.co, where you can subscribe to be the first to hear about my podcasts, blog posts and other goodies.

Eve: [00:03:23] Hi, Lyneir. Thanks so much for joining me today.

Lyneir Richardson: [00:03:26] Eve, it’s a pleasure to be with you.

Eve: [00:03:28] So, I’m looking forward to this conversation. But let’s start by talking about Chicago Trend. What does Chicago Trend do?

Lyneir: [00:03:37] Chicago Trend was formed in 2016 to strengthen commercial corridors and retail in neighborhoods that are on the cusp of change. Most of our work has been in majority Black neighborhoods. As you know, the first impression of a neighborhood is the commercial corridor. So, if you drive into a neighborhood and you see a shopping center that’s underdeveloped or a boarded up storefront or a liquor store and check cashing, even if the homes are in good shape, your first impression of that neighborhood is that something could be better here. And we see disinvestment all around, and our goal is to come up with strategies to arrange capital, to make the case for retailers to strengthen commercial neighborhoods, which ultimately will strengthen and strengthen the commercial corridor, which ultimately will strengthen the neighborhood.

Eve: [00:04:35] So, to turn the first impression into an opportunity instead of a ‘let’s not go here’. Right?

Lyneir: [00:04:40] Instead of the retail being a liability, it should be an asset for the community.

Eve: [00:04:45] Yes. How does Trend work? How many people work for you?

Lyneir: [00:04:48] We’re still a small team. We have six people total. We have a whole lot of advisers and consultants and part time experts, subject matter experts, best legal team architects and contractors. What’s been fun is, you know, we own four shopping centers now. And there’s one part of the work that’s about the shopping center specifically, but there’s another part of the work that we’ve been able to engage. Black property managers, Black leasing agents, people of color as architects and engineers. Even the landscaper on one of our shopping centers is Black. And the way I talk about that is that being intentionally inclusive doesn’t mean exclusive. We have other people as well, right, that work on our properties that are not Black. But the thought of being able and being in a position to give opportunities to retailers and entrepreneurs who connect with these communities, who have not only a professional expertise but also a deep sort of history, their family still, they grew up there. Ideally, it means that we’ll get better services and more intense quality of work.

Eve: [00:06:08] It’s pretty powerful. So, now you have a plan to build Black wealth through increased ownership opportunities of real estate assets. So, tell me about the plan and your strategy and how it emerged.

Lyneir: [00:06:20] Yes. So, when we acquired our first shopping center in Chicago, it was initially the strategy of if we owned it and we could control it and we can hire experts. And then right after George Floyd was murdered, I remember seeing a guy holding a sign up. There was civil unrest in the neighborhoods we were working in. And the sign said, ‘Please don’t destroy, my business is Black-owned’. And what I remember thinking is, wow, who owns the shopping center? And that became the inspiration for our work. The way I talk about it is, wealth is created by owning assets, assets that generate revenue and appreciate over time. And that if we really are going to close racial wealth gap, if we really are going to strengthen neighborhoods, we got to create a way to do more inclusive ownership of real estate assets and other assets that can close the racial wealth gap. So, one of my proudest moments in the history of this business is we raised $330,000 from 130 Black local small investors on Small Change. We did work together, and it was, it was the plan.

Lyneir: [00:07:48] And initially Eve, the thing that also was fun about that project and that time is there was an article in the Wall Street Journal. Penny Pritzker, the former commerce secretary, was quoted in the Wall Street Journal. She sits on the board of the Harvard Land Company, and the quote was, Harvard had issued some RFP, and I believe Tishman Speyer won the RFP. As a part of the requirements of the RFP, they require that 5% of the equity in the project, big high profile, hundreds of million-dollar project, 5% of the equity had to be available to Black and Brown investors. And the quote in The Wall Street Journal was, Penny Pritzker says one of the reasons there’s a racial wealth gap in America is people of color don’t get invited into good real estate deals. And The Wall Street Journal was highlighting that the investors were Jay-Z and LeBron James and Wall Street executives. And I remember thinking, I called her, I like, sent a note immediately and said, hey, we’re doing the same thing. But our investors are millennials and grandmothers and charter school parents and the teachers, they’re investing 1000 or $2,000. So, it’s one thing to say, well, I want to have more people of color and I’m not knocking, we’d welcome Jay-Z or LeBron.

Eve: [00:09:12] Wouldn’t that be great? Yeah.

Lyneir: [00:09:14] But what’s equally important is that we have individuals that we can touch and feel. And I’m branding this. I haven’t created merchandise yet, but I have this idea to brand what I’m calling #WOT, we own this. And the ‘we’ doesn’t even mean the 130 investors that invest with us. The ‘we’ is, that’s my uncle, that’s my aunt, Eve.

Eve: [00:09:41] Yeah.

Lyneir: [00:09:41] That’s my, I went to school. That’s my fraternity brother. That pride of ownership. I saw it firsthand. We were doing a Little League parade with my brother in Harlem and my nephew had $1,000 in a local bank. And as we walk down the streets in Harlem, he said, I own that bank because he had $1,000 deposit.

Eve: [00:10:07] Yeah, yeah.

Lyneir: [00:10:07] He owned that bank. So, imagine if he had said, I own that shopping center.

Eve: [00:10:11] Yeah, well, this is why Small Change exists, because I feel very much the same way as you do. I mean, it’s great when people with a lot of money invest in disinvested neighborhoods. That’s a great thing. But it’s even better if the people in the neighborhood, you know, get get a chance to go along for the ride. And especially as home ownership is quickly becoming more and more out of the reach of many people, there has to be a way I mean, real estate assets are solid. It’s sort of a tried and true way to build wealth. Everyone knows that owning a home is the number one way to do it. So, there has to be a way to let people in. I think it’s really important. I love what you’re doing.

Lyneir: [00:10:55] Thank you.

Eve: [00:10:56] And then there are lots of statistics, right? The percentage of Blacks who own commercial real estate is much lower than the percentage of Whites, and the value of the real estate is also much lower.

Lyneir: [00:11:08] Yeah. You know, I have the good fortune of late last year becoming a nonresident Senior Fellow of the Brookings Institution.

Eve: [00:11:18] Congratulations.

Lyneir: [00:11:19] Thank you. And working with very esteemed researchers Andre Perry and Tracy Hadden Loh.

Eve: [00:11:31] They’re amazing.

Lyneir: [00:11:32] You know, they’ve done some incredible work. Andre’s work around the devaluation of assets, his research and Tracy’s research that only 3% of commercial property is owned by Black people, as opposed to six times that for people that are not Black just shows that there’s opportunity there. And so, we’re digging into that work. I’m looking forward to doing some more research and exploration and coming up with some new knowledge and tools that will help close the gap.

Eve: [00:12:02] And then I’m going to look forward to interviewing you about it. So, I’ve interviewed both Tracy and Andre. They’re both amazing. So, tell me the big plan. What’s the big plan?

Lyneir: [00:12:12] We have a project now. So, we own four assets. We raised a fund to allow us to buy 12 more shopping centers, and the goal is in each instance to make as little as 5% and as much as 49% of the equity available to entrepreneurs to and to local entrepreneurs, community residents, socially minded small investors. So whether it’s Black investors just in the neighborhood or as people who believe that there are thousand or $5000 investment, even if they live across the country, across the world, that they want a return but they also want to see that their dollars mean something in the neighborhood. So, it’s not just for residents. right. But I do a lot of work, Zoom calls, community meetings, setting up little coffees in the library, to talk to community. But I always tell people we need everyone. I last raised our Small Change raise, 50% of the investors. There about, 53% were Black people. But that means 47% were not, right, that we had 33% of our investors were right from the state of Maryland or in the zip code where the shopping center was. But that means the other two thirds were not. So, we need impact investors who want to see this strategy of making neighborhoods better, getting amenities and services and investment, reducing crime, you know, and attractive places. You know, that’s what our small offerings is aiming to do. So, we want to own 16 shopping centers. We think that’s going to be about $100 million of investment. We want to have 1000 small impact investors in our projects, and we want to do that in the next three years or so.

Lyneir: [00:14:06] Wow. So, you own four. And where are they all located?

Lyneir: [00:14:10] We own three in Chicago. We own the one in Baltimore. We’re about to buy our second in Baltimore, our fourth asset in Chicago. And we’re just getting, we have a property under contract in Columbus, Ohio. So, same way, in a vibrant retail corridor. We’ve been cultivating really good community leaders, local entrepreneurs, residents who want to see better retail and want to have an ownership interest in better retail. So our strategy of asking people to co-own with us right, is something that again I, you know, I get a lot of energy from.

Eve: [00:14:52] So, full disclosure you have a project that’s listing on Small Change right now and this is part of your strategy. It’s a big project. Where is that one? Tell us about it.

Lyneir: [00:15:04] So, this is in West Baltimore, three miles away from where we bought our first project. So, anyone that expressed an interest in our first project, we hope they will take a look at this one. This is a $41 Million acquisition and redevelopment, so it’s a big deal. However, this shopping center, Eve, when it was built in the 1940s, it was built with such great ambition. It had a movie theater and a pet shop and a department store across the street, a lunch counter that people loved that had holiday lights. Well, over the years it’s experienced disinvestment. Now it’s had, its recent history is two fires. There was a tragic shooting in the parking lot. Even though there is strong home ownership around it, a whole lot of traffic passes the shopping center. It needs redevelopment.

Lyneir: [00:15:59] So, our whole strategy is that we call it reimagine, revitalize, redevelop, reposition the shopping center, attracting a grocery store and sit-down restaurants and other services and amenities. Most of our projects, Eve, I call them service-oriented shopping centers. So, this is not Best Buy in West Elm and the Cheesecake Factory. This is the drugstore, the carry out pizza, Health Services, grocery, a place to have a sit down. For us to meet right now in West Baltimore for coffee, we’d actually have to leave the city, right? There’s no place. A TGI Fridays, you know, an Applebee’s, and you pick whatever. Nothing glamorous, it’s just a place that would serve and be a place where you can go and have a birthday party.

Eve: [00:16:53] And I love the way that you talk about these. These are not businesses that Amazon will compete with. They’re really service businesses in the neighborhood, which is just a really interesting way to think about it.

Lyneir: [00:17:06] Amazon doesn’t do fingernails yet, although I did see a machine somewhere where it was like a robot doing manicures. But so, it’s, it really is services.

Eve: [00:17:19] Interesting. So, what are some of the challenges you’re being confronted with in terms of financing or even perception or the tenant pool?

Lyneir: [00:17:28] Yep. So, we’ve had, you know, once a shopping center loses its franchise as a property, right, the retailers say, oh, you know, I’ve been there. I’ve seen a decline. Right? So, the first thing is painting a very big new vision and convincing people that you have the resources to bring that new vision to fruition. So, even as we got this property on the contract, the first thing we did was we went to the municipality, and we got an 8,000,000 million. This is not a promise. It’s now past the the City Council approval process, an $8 million commitment for capital improvements. We’re having those same level of discussions with the State of Maryland and hope to have those approvals lined up. So, imagine having $15-16 million of public money that’s focused on making a first-class renovation here, A. B, one of the challenges to the redevelopment here was, there was a, back in the Forties when the shopping center was developed, there was the set of quote unquote restrictive covenants that there were 120 parcel owners around the shopping center and it really precluded, you can’t do new signage. You can imagine back in the forties, you can’t do out parcels, you know, as we think about where a restaurant might sit or where a bank branch might sit. And so, we’ve had to go through this process of hosting community meetings and introducing ourselves and our plan and, you know, almost on a one-by-one basis, getting 59 people to parse the owners.

Eve: [00:19:13] It’s like a political campaign.

Lyneir: [00:19:14] Right. And again, but part of the reason that the shopping center is in this condition is nobody has had the energy and the strategy and the urgency but patience to work with the local parcel owners to get this approval process done. So, if you would have seen me out there. One hot August day, Eve, I was sitting in front of the shopping center with like a car table, and I wish I would have brought a Pitcher of lemonade. It would look like Lyneir’s lemonade stand know. But I was saying, you know, I have a contract to purchase the shopping center. Here’s our plan. And one by one, getting the support that we need to move forward.

Eve: [00:19:57] Wow, and you have that support now?

Lyneir: [00:19:58] We have. We’re almost done with it. We still have some process.

Eve: [00:20:02] Congratulations.

Lyneir: [00:20:03] Part of my thought of, we’ve lined up our first mortgage financing. We have our equity. We made this offering on Small Change to create opportunity for local investors. And it’s funny because it’s not as if we absolutely need the money. We really believe that if local people and small investors have a sense of ownership, they’ll patronize, protect, respect, support the project in a way like owners. And that’s what we really. So, I’d like to have, we need a few, I’d like to have many. Right. Because you want other people to care and protect them and respect and patronize the shopping center. And so, over the next two months, we’ll continue to work to get our Covenant amendments in place. We’ve got to get our permits to build the building. We’ve got to work with it. So, this is a multi-year multi-phase project, but we really do believe it’s going to be financially rewarding and rewarding to see this project come to life as a revitalization for this part of Baltimore.

Eve: [00:21:08] And are the current tenants excited?

Lyneir: [00:21:11] They are. So, you know, there’s an opportunity to do, to bring new tenants as well. So, there are tenants that have been there and have whether but there’s an opportunity here to bring, as I said, from financial services, to restaurants, to health services, to new grocery stores, all of which were in active discussions with right now.

Eve: [00:21:34] So, one thing you didn’t mention, Walbrook Junction, where you did raise funds on Small Change. What percentage ownership did those investors get?

Lyneir: [00:21:41] So they’re 49%.

Eve: [00:21:43] Isn’t that amazing?

Lyneir: [00:21:44] So, what’s interesting is our motto is we can make as little as 5% and as much as 49%. So, we raised our capital from big philanthropy to be able to buy these assets. And if we just get 5% of local investment, we’ll put the rest of the money in. But really, in some respects, that’s almost what we want because we like to keep 95% of the act. But our deal both with the city and getting public financing and with philanthropy is, we’re going to make this equity available. So, last time around there was a positive news article and within a few weeks after that, we had achieved our goal or our maximum goal of raising 49%, I raised enough equity so that local small dollar impact investors, residents own 49% of the of the property.

Eve: [00:22:35] Yeah, I remember one of our investors actually reaching out to you. He’s a white man and he’s been a very loyal investor on Small Change, invested in many things. And he asked your permission if he if he could invest, which I thought was really charming.

Lyneir: [00:22:51] That came out a couple of times. People like, I’m a white guy, Can I invest? Yeah. Again, intentionally inclusive doesn’t mean exclusive. You know, in this instance, we have over, a lot of opportunity, I should say. All the details on the Small Change website. I’ll be compliant, Eve. But again, we want to have a diverse set of investors who want to earn a return, but also want to see that their dollars are impactful. So, we need not just the local investors.

Eve: [00:23:25] This is in a place that’s never really had that opportunity before.

Lyneir: [00:23:30] Right. But but let me just add, you know, we have experience, resources, industry, relationships, track record, all of that. So, we believe people will earn a financial return. Right? So, they’re investing not just in a hope and a dream, and not just in a mission of revitalizing neighborhoods, but they’re investing in a team that has expertise to deliver the project.

Eve: [00:23:59] So, I have to ask, how did you get from your initial career choice of law to this?

Lyneir: [00:24:07] I started my career as a bank lawyer, and every day the bank would have us working on loan documents for $100 million or $200 million loan to some big publicly traded company. And every day, about 2:00 in the afternoon, I’d fall asleep at my desk. The work was so boring. It wasn’t until there was a pro bono assignment where the bank was going to make $100,000 loan or thereabouts to a barber who was buying his building on a commercial corridor maybe two miles from where I grew up, west side of Chicago. The work came to life. It had meaning. It was the same promissory note and mortgage. But there was something about connecting this entrepreneur to this big bank. Connecting resources to financing. And I can now articulate it this way. I couldn’t do it when I was 27 as a bank lawyer, getting resources to people and places that other people overlook or undervalue, that’s my passion. Making the case, connecting the dots. There’s narrative. You do some writing. The numbers have to make sense. That work is what energizes me.

Eve: [00:25:25] So, I have one last question for you, and that is what keeps you up at night?

Lyneir: [00:25:30] Yeah. So, it’s what keeps me up at night is a great question. So, you know, you want to be right. Right? And these projects, it’s going to take five or seven or ten years before you really would know you were right. But more than anything, I want people to be able to say at some point is, you know what? He had a plan, and he was right. So, I stay up at night going, am I missing a table? Do I have the right people on the team? Should I be doing something a little different way? How can I connect the dots? Right. So, part of my challenge is I’m solving problems at night while you’re trying to sleep and, like, all right, go to sleep.

Eve: [00:26:15] I’m exactly the same.

Lyneir: [00:26:17] Yeah. Yeah. Wakes you up more than it keeps you up. Wakes you up and I’m like, oh, so I can fall asleep pretty quickly. But I wake up early, you know, quite often.

Eve: [00:26:26] Okay, well, I hope, I really, I expect it’s going to work out very well. I certainly hope it does. And I hope you get lots of sleep between now and then. And thank you very much for joining me.

Lyneir: [00:26:38] Thank you for having me today.

Eve: [00:27:03] 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 Lyneir Richardson

Superpowers.

“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

100% Community.

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

Transforming neighborhoods through crowdfunding.

“The idea of harnessing small-scale investors for real estate development is gaining momentum nationally, boosted by digital platforms and federal rule changes” writes Carey L. Biron, for Thomson Reuters Foundation. “Backers say the approach opens up real estate investing to a broader pool of buyers and gives locals a say in neighborhood investments – and a stake in any profits, too.”

Since 2016 crowdfunding laws have been driving investment and the US market is estimated to reach USD250.62 billion by 2030. “Real estate has traditionally been left to those who already have money to make more money. And crowdfunding gives you a platform to democratize that,” says Molly McCabe, chief executive of investment advisory firm HaydenTanner. “This is one way to really ensure the community gets to participate and benefit from what’s being created, and to have a sense of ownership.”

Crowdfunding not only makes real estate investing available to a broader pool of buyers, but it provides previously unobtainable finance for unusual projects and marginalized minority and women developers.

Lyneir Richardson, chief executive of social enterprise Chicago TREND, is one of those developers. He crowdfunded a partial purchase of Walbrook Junction, a shopping center in a Black neighborhood of Baltimore which has seen major decline in its 40 years. Richardson held more than 60 meetings with local groups and 90 percent of his 130 investors, who invested between $1,000 and $50,000, care about or have some connection to the neighborhood. He now intends to revitalize Walbrook Junction to bring life and wealth back into the neighborhood.

Another developer, Joanna Bartholomew, used crowdfunding to raise capital for Aruka Midway. The project aims to restore 23 Baltimore row houses which have been vacant for decades. “We did it with the purpose of showing people you can have a stake in the neighborhoods you’re from, or neighborhoods that remind you of where you grew up,” said Bartholomew, chief executive of O’Hara Developments.“That you’re able to invest in your own backyard.” This was Bartholomew’s first try at crowdfunding and although it took more work than she expected, it brought her almost 80 new investors.

Both developers raised capital through Small Change, an online platform launched in 2016 by Eve Picker. Small Change has helped raise almost $11 million to build housing for the homeless, transform empty buildings into corner shops, put retail in food deserts “and everything in between” said Picker. More than half of those developments are women- or minority-owned, and most would not have succeeded in seeking traditional financing. “Projects like these require patient money and a long-term hold,” she said. “You have to wait while the neighborhood catches up.”

Read the original article here. Or listen to podcast interviews with Lyneir Richardson and Joanna Batholomew.

Image courtesy of Joanna Bartholomew

No more broken promises.

Brinda Devine has over 25 years of experience in real estate, beginning at age 29 with Acquest Development, where she earned her real estate broker license and served as their Vice President of Asset Management. She then joined Wayne State University, where she established a Real Estate Office which facilitates the purchase and sale of land and buildings for the University, and she became the university’s first Real Estate Officer.

Much of Brinda’s real estate career has been influenced by her race and gender – she notes that early on in her real estate career, Brinda was often the only woman and/or Black person in the office, in meetings, at events, and even in classes. 

In 2020 she decided to take the step to become a real estate developer, starting P8 Real Estate Solutions, to focus on developing neighborhood marketplaces within Detroit neighborhoods that lacked easy access to the daily necessities most of us take for granted. During the last two years, Brinda says she’s learned that the number one challenge of being a woman, particularly a Black woman developer, is getting access to capital. Her first project is the Kornr Store, and is a kind of development prototype that will provide what Brinda calls ‘life essentials’ – like coffee, healthy food and drink options, prepared food, home and personal goods, green space, internet access. She’s raising funds for this project on Small Change.

Brinda is an active member of Urban Land Institute, and a member of their Small Scale Local Product Development Council. She is a co-founding member and treasurer of Detroit’s Women’s Sustainable Development Initiative, and was also a member of the 2020 Cohort of the Equitable Development Initiative in Detroit, through Capital Impact Partners. Brinda is also an author of two books – Discover Your Value, Discover Your Purpose, and Authentication Process: Connecting the Dots of Being a Believer and Living a Life of Purpose.

Read the podcast transcript here

Eve Picker: [00:00:05] 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. If you haven’t already, check out all of my podcasts at our website RethinkRealEstateForGood.co, or you can find them at your favorite podcast station. You’ll find lots worth listening to, I’m sure.

Eve: [00:00:56] Brinda Devine boasts of a 25-year career in real estate, working her way up to VP of Asset Management with Acquest Development. And then at Wayne State University, where she established a real estate office which facilitates the purchase and sale of land and buildings for the university. Much of Brinda’s real estate career has been influenced by her race and gender. She’s Black and she’s a woman. She notes that early on she was often the only woman and or Black person in the office, in meetings, at events, and even in classes. In 2020, Brenda decided to switch seats at the table by launching her own real estate company, P8 Real Estate Solutions. She is focusing on developing neighborhood marketplaces within Detroit neighborhoods. But now, being Black and a woman have become a challenge to her like never before. Brinda Devine has a big story to tell, so listen in.

Eve: [00:02:09] 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 and go to rethinkrealestateforgood.co, where you can subscribe to be the first to hear about my podcasts, blog posts and other goodies. Good morning, Brenda. Thanks so much for joining me today.

Brinda Devine: [00:02:32] Good morning. Thank you for inviting me.

Eve: [00:02:36] You’ve had a pretty interesting career in real estate, 25 years of it. How did real estate become your career path?

Brinda: [00:02:44] Well, that’s a little crazy. I actually didn’t know anything about commercial real estate. I was about 25, 27 years old, left a banking career, answered a wild ad in a newspaper, the Sunday newspaper. Went to an interview, just going to find out about things and ended up getting the job out of 300 applicants.

Eve: [00:03:08] Wow.

Brinda: [00:03:09] Yeah. Surprised me, too. And I actually work for a wonderful developer who trained me from the ground up of not knowing anything and he was a colorblind individual. He did not see color, race, he just wanted to make sure that you were on the team and that we all were working towards the same goal. So, a beautiful gentleman.

Eve: [00:03:37] And so, over 25 years you worked with him and then you were the first real estate officer for Wayne State University as well, is that correct?

Brinda: [00:03:46] Yep. So, I stayed with the developer about 12 years and then I ended up applying for a position at Wayne State. They created an officer of real estate and joined there in 2005 and started that office for the university. And at that time, and I think that’s still the case, the office was actually led by an African American woman of color. A person of color. The real estate office for the university. So that was, I don’t think really too many people think about it that way, but that’s, I thought it was significant, particularly with the impact with development in the city, particularly the the midtown area. So, it’s been interesting.

Eve: [00:04:37] Very good. So, you’ve spent 25 years in the real estate industry and only recently you decided to take the plunge and create your own development company. What made you do that?

Brinda: [00:04:50] So, I’ve been blessed to be on the opposite side of the table to do business with developers. And I’m going to say that every one of them that I’ve dealt with, they were Caucasian males. I’ve not had a project with. No, I take it back one one Black developer I did a project with. So, I was thinking I needed to get from behind a desk and see what the reality was for developers on the opposite side of the table. I decided at the beginning of 2020 that I wanted to be a developer and I sought out a class through Capital Impacts EDI program, which is essentially a development class for minority developers. And it was eye opening. Being on the opposite side of the table of getting a lot of feedback and information on how that process works and how it is so much different for Black developers than the developers that I had been working with.

Eve: [00:06:00] And on top of that, you’re a woman, which, you know, I was the only female developer in Pittsburgh for many years. So, I can only imagine you’re a rare breed. So, how has that impacted your career? And you said this was eye opening and in what way was it eye opening?

Brinda: [00:06:21] So, I’ve been in commercial real estate. I usually work with men, white males. And so, I can say that I’ve been sort of trained for that type of environment. It doesn’t bother me being the only person in the room. I have typically been the only woman in the room, the only Black in the room, and I adjusted to it because my personality is pretty direct and that’s just a different pace when you’re working with developers. So, that didn’t really bother me because I fit my personality. And so, I understood that world of real estate, of coming in, talking to someone about your project and that there would be funds available. One, two, three, easy. I wanted to see what it was like on opposite side. And what I found out is that it is full of challenges, it’s full of broken promises, it’s full of. And because I’m analytical and because I don’t come from that background, I have the ability to sort through information to go, okay, this is not really working. Why is this process not working? And be able to look into it a little deeper, because I’ve not been in that realm, and I could take a look at it from a first look. So, it was eye opening because I just saw processes that did not work and because the majority of the people who who many of them have, I would say for the not-for-profit side, they’re in this realm where they’ve committed themselves to do good and they are in these programs and they’re trying to help people. But the problem is they are not developers. They have absolutely no idea. They’re program managers. And it’s really hard to make something work when you don’t have any feedback on what that feels like or what that process is. And working, it’s all sort of like it’s just a process without actually having the experience, I put it that way.

Eve: [00:08:31] Right. So, it doesn’t sound like it’s impacted your career very much, but now that you’ve become a developer, what’s that like?

Brinda: [00:08:41] It’s been very frustrating because from my background, when I look at what, when I used to be an analyst and work for a developer and what was required to do a deal. But then when you’re a woman or a person of color and you’re reaching out to lenders for funding, there’s always something that’s missing. There’s this big cloud of a big veil of information that is uncertain. People are interested in your project. They love the idea. They want to meet and talk about it, they want to help. And then the day after you get a call that, well, you know, I went to the team, and we talked about it and we don’t really think your project fits. How does a marketplace within within a neighborhood not fit? There’s always some level of criteria that there’s something that astounds me, that they don’t have the expertise in the beginning to analyze that. So, it’s been very, very frustrating. And you have to have a huge level of resilience about yourself and determination to push through your project, irregardless of what someone says or what they say they’re going to do. And then it doesn’t happen. You have to have this resilience about you. So, it’s been frustrating, but I also find it fascinating, and I find it challenging to be able to figure it out and get it done.

Eve: [00:10:25] Well good for you because it makes me want to cry. Really. I mean. I don’t even know what to say. So, we are not at the point where an equal society. That’s for sure. Right.

Brinda: [00:10:40] Yeah. I have the opportunity to be associated with an organization that listens to me. A not for profit, the Urban Land Institute that listens. And I’ve shared my perspectives and experiences and I’ve had a good opportunity just a couple of weeks ago to pitch my project at a committee meeting, and I took the opportunity to make it a teachable moment. I would say you should expand your circle. You should expand your friends, the food you eat, where you drive, places you go. Developers are often embedded in one area, and with this set of friends that I grew up with to school with and da da da. And so, their perspectives are limited and so their environment is limited and the information that they receive is limited.

Brinda: [00:11:30] So, when you give someone an opportunity to share your experience and expand their circle, I can pose it in a way for them to understand what it would be like if they were in the same scenario. So, they can have an emotional attachment to the problem that I’m talking about. I’ve gotten a lot of feedback from people of I really had not thought about it like that. I really had not considered that. You know what, I really need to do more about that. And that could be as simple as referring someone for a job, hiring someone, adding someone to your team, and you’ll get a different perspective, a different understanding to expand your circle. So, that’s the approach that I’ve been going at, just being vocal about it. I think sometimes we don’t we don’t really talk about stuff. We try to be politically, too much being politically correct and not just speaking out and being direct in our conversation.

Eve: [00:12:29] I love the way you talk about it, so I’m going to ask you, with all of this experience wrapped up, what sort of projects have you decided to focus on with your real estate company?

Brinda: [00:12:39] Okay, so personally, I am solution and purpose driven in the capital impact classes for the minority developer program I mentioned, I was exposed to a lot of information, research, market data, demographics and the consistent stream through Detroit and a lot of urban areas like Detroit is that there is a lack of healthy food options within the neighborhoods and there’s a lack of personal and home goods. And I found that it’s a good percentage of people shop at their convenience stores, the dollar stores, the gas stations. Even though Detroit is a motor city, there is a huge percentage of adults that don’t have access to a car and during the pandemic, not necessarily access to public transportation as well. So, there is a need for a typical what you call a, what I grew up with, a corner store within the neighborhood. You can pick up your essential life, essential things, you know, some groceries, some healthy snacks, some healthy foods and things, some coffee, some prepared foods.

Brinda: [00:13:52] There’s a lack of that in the neighborhood. There’s a big gap for the small-scale developments. They’re more inclined to 1 million and up. And so my niche is to focus on developing small scale marketplaces within emerging Detroit neighborhoods. I don’t think that’s an insurmountable task. You know, I’ve heard someone say, Well, that’s a novelty. And I had to challenge him and say, it’s not a novelty to have a store to go to. You actually go to a grocery store, and you eat on a regular basis. That shouldn’t be something that you have to consider what you’re going to do. And they hadn’t thought about that, just like I had not thought about it before I took the class, and I expanded my circle. So, eating is not a novelty marketplace. A corner store is not a novelty in a neighborhood. So, just to get past that whole notion, but I try to make it funny but try to make it serious as well.

Eve: [00:14:57] So you’ve got a first project that you’re working on, Kornr store. How did you find it and what neighborhood is it in?

Brinda: [00:15:04] So, it’s in the Northwest Goldberg neighborhood of Detroit. It’s not far from some long-standing partners here before, Northwestern High School, Motown Museum. I’m actually, I have been working on a model for this type of store for probably about for over two years. And I happened to mention to someone that I have been looking for a building, and they happened to mention this neighborhood, which I was somewhat familiar with. And I walked through the neighborhood, and what’s interesting about the neighborhood, there’s not that many parcels that are zoned for commercial. So, there were two buildings that were vacant. I look them both up, I found out who owned them both. One of them, I was a Facebook friend. And then I saw that we had a mutual friend and I asked for an introduction, and we got along very well and we had a mutual interest in the building of what it is. The building is actually a 100-year-old building. The original owner in 1904 went down to the city of Detroit and had it zoned for that parcel to be a grocery store. So that grocery store has fed that neighborhood for years.

Eve: [00:16:16] That’s lovely.

Brinda: [00:16:17] And that’s what it’s been. And the person was initially purchased it to do the same thing, but it ended up being too small for their use. And so they had been waiting for someone who had the same type of mindset. So, we agreed on it and he sold it to me, and I actually felt as if he was passing a baton to me because it’s a long legacy of feeding a neighborhood. And I just was grateful, if someone had told me a year ago that I would be doing this, I would have said that you were crazy. But purpose leads you to places that you would not think that you would land. And I’m just grateful that he trusts me enough to sell me the building.

Eve: [00:17:11] So how big is it?

Brinda: [00:17:13] The building is about 1600 square feet. There’s commercial space on the first floor which where the corner store would be. And then above there’s a two bedroom, two bath. And oftentimes I get asked, what, don’t you think that’s too small? I’m like, no, it’s the perfect size because it fits within a neighborhood.

Eve: [00:17:33] Right. And how are you going to drag it into this century? Like what’s going to be different in your store versus the way it used to be?

Brinda: [00:17:41] Well, that’s a good question. So, what is going to be different? I have a small team. One of my team members is out of New York and she has a lot of good ideas. And I’ve done a lot of research on different marketplaces outside of Michigan. Actually, Michigan’s kind of slow in terms of advancement and technology for convenience stores. So, one of the things in this will have to be scaled and I have to start at square one and scale up. But one of the things that’s going to be different is we’re going to have, of course, a coffee bar, but we’re also going to have another type of bar. And I’m not going to say it because I don’t want anybody to take my idea. We’re going to have this other type of bar that has to do with food that I have found that people are so entrenched, and they love this type of food and to eat it all day and we’ll have that type. But we’ll also have some healthy food and drink options and some groceries and such and some artwork and some wine and some of the typical things you find in the convenience store. But the Kornr Store brand is also about being an amenity to the neighborhood, but also a neighbor.

Brinda: [00:18:58] So, during the weeks’ time when there is a lull, let’s say a Friday, nobody’s really thinking about going to the corner store on a Friday, late afternoon or Thursday. We’ll have some time to activate different activities that we’ve been planning for community engagement. The neighborhood has a huge percentage of senior residents and also young mothers and then older gentleman, and we’ll plan events around the neighborhood, different activities that they can do. So, we can engage and use the space and also engage with local pop ups, maybe have some wine tasting events, maybe have some tutoring events. I have a multitude of friends that have finance backgrounds, real estate, architecture, legal. They can do different tutoring sessions or just have different topics that would interest the neighborhood. A birthday month for different seniors just to connect and to say that we’re here. We’re a neighbor. Yeah, I want you to shop. I want you to come by. But the very first thing I want is that when you walk through that door that you feel like you belong here. I’ve gone into other places, and you feel like you don’t belong there. Like the neighbors, the residents who have held it down for so long won’t feel welcome. I want the people in Northwest Goldberg, those neighbors to feel like they can walk in, and I’ll have something for them and I’ll have something for other people. I have something for guests. I have something that will peak someone’s interest if they feel like when they walk in there, they feel like they’re welcome and they feel good.

Brinda: [00:20:44] That’s what I want to get out of this, that they feel good when they come in and then they stay for a while, then they leave. But that they feel good being in the Kornr Store that that brings back that emotional connection of the corner store that I grew up with. And I tell people all the time when I say corner store, this is emotional feeling of like, that’s the place where you used to go pick up something at the last minute. That’s the place where you actually went and found out what was going on in the neighborhood. That was the old school Internet of going in and finding out the news of what was going on. And I want that. I want people to feel like they can walk in and feel good about being there.

Eve: [00:21:23] You’ve talked about the challenge of financing a project like this and a project led by a Black woman. But you’ve added crowdfunding to the mix, which is an extra lift. Why investment crowdfunding. Who do you hope will invest?

Brinda: [00:21:40] Being the analytical person I am, I’ve placed applications for lenders, and we talked about that. And real estate, as you know, is about timing. And I needed another platform other than just the lender, I needed to have something that connected, that a person could read the story, they could understand, okay, this is a good idea. This is the right time. That’s why I reached out for the crowdfunding. One of the things I’m finding about with lenders, I mean, some of them seem to be in a small spot, a place, and they can’t really embrace the whole idea of Kornr Store because they have hundreds of loans going by. But when you have an opportunity to read the story, to read what I’m focused on, this isn’t for me. I didn’t pick this. It picked me. And in real estate, I truly believe that you should have a project that’s bigger than you. And this project is definitely bigger than me. It is totally out of my comfort zone, but it is much needed, and I am in at 100% so.

Eve: [00:22:55] So it’s really small but mighty, right?

Brinda: [00:22:58] It’s small but mighty and it has. And I tell people all the time, you don’t have to have huge projects to make an impact. You can have a small project and make an impact. Would a 200-unit apartment really impact the neighborhood? Or will you have an impact by putting in a smaller footprint that impacts the neighborhood and retains its personality? Smaller projects have big impacts as well.

Eve: [00:23:29] Talking about that, how have the neighbors welcomed you and this project?

Brinda: [00:23:34] They have welcomed me because I was respectful. I came in as a person. I came in as a human. I approached people as humans. I was respectful of the layers of history, the neighborhood clubs, the dynamics that go on under the surface. And because I was respectful and didn’t come in, like, I know everything, I’m this and that. You know, these demographics say this and that. I mean, demographics can be skewed as well. They can be biased. So, I came in as a human and approach my project as a human and the people that live there. That’s why the Kornr Store is an amenity, but we want to be a neighbor. So, planning a neighbor in a place. And so, I have been welcomed very well. I’ve been introduced to the person before the person I purchased the building from. The building has a crack of grocery store. It’s known in the neighborhood as that. And I met the owner who I believe he’s 83. We met online and he actually provided me with a story of how he actually came into acquiring the store, which I found fascinating. It was more information, more history. And I could tell when I first saw the building how it was respected because there was no graffiti. It wasn’t damaged. It’s 100-year-old building and it’s structurally sound. So, that told me a lot about how the neighborhood feels about that store.

Eve: [00:25:19] Yeah. One more question about it, and that fascinated me when I learned about this project. And you said that you will try to incorporate items to sell in the store that actually made by neighborhood residents. How has that come together?

Brinda: [00:25:34] So in Detroit, there are a lot of people who have small businesses, and we have a lot of incubators for small businesses that have been going on even before the pandemic. So, there are a lot of entrepreneurs here, a lot of artists, musicians and such, and I have it on my website that if anyone is interested in selling their items in the store, I have the opportunity to buy their products, even like authors. I have quite a few friends that are authors. I like to have a few books by local authors or have them pop up and do a pop up about their products or their books or their services. And I think that’s important because it gives them an opportunity to have access to a space without having to go and pay for a space. And they’re a start-up as well. I would definitely believe in spaces that have multiple uses.

Eve: [00:26:33] So once this one is put to bed, which I’m sure, yeah. What is the timeline, by the way? When are you hoping to get it finished?

Brinda: [00:26:41] I just had that phone call today. So, I could actually have the business open up by the end of this year. I’m ready to go with the permit and everything. The problem is the financing. I really need the financing to get this going. I’ve put in quite a significant amount of my own money, so it’s not like I’m sitting here going, okay, I want everybody else to put their money in but me. No, I’ve done that. We’re at the point where we are ready to start construction and as soon as we can start, that would be fantastic for me.

Eve: [00:27:16] You’d be underway. So, once it’s finished, what’s next? I’m sure you’re thinking about the next one.

Brinda: [00:27:22] Oh, yeah, I’ve already. I’m already looking for the second one. I’m already looking for another location for the second one. So that’s the idea behind the Kornr Store model is that it can fit in a residential lot. So, I am already looking at a second location, more than likely to lease that one. But this very first one, this one is the most important. It sets the tone for everything else. So yeah, the idea is to scale this model within Detroit and then elsewhere.

Eve: [00:27:57] So Brinda, I love the idea and I want to come visit as soon as it’s finished. I can’t wait to see it. And I wish you all the best of luck.

Brinda: [00:28:08] Thank you. I appreciate you. You know, I appreciate you. I do.

Eve: [00:28:12] Thank you so much for joining me.

Brinda: [00:28:14] No, thank you for inviting me. Thank you.

Eve: [00:28:23] Brinda Devine is a rare breed. She has spent most of her real estate career as the only Black and the only woman in the room. And she got used to it. Now she’s facing a different challenge with the first real estate project that she’s tackling on her own, access to capital.

Eve: [00:28:51] You can find out more about this episode or others you might have missed on the show notes page at our website RethinkRealEstateForGood.co. There’s lots to listen to there. A special thanks to David Allardice for his excellent editing of this podcast and original music, and 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 Brinda Devine