Mayor Lori Lightfoot and supporting community leaders gathered to commence the groundbreaking of Xquina Café in Little Village.
On Wednesday September 23, 2020, city, state and community leaders including Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, Alderperson Michael D. Rodriguez, Director of Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO) Erin Guthrie, and Principal of P3 Markets Juan Saldana kicked off the groundbreaking ceremony of Xquina Cafe.
Xquina Café is the first bilingual business incubator that will house a café, shared kitchen, and co-working space to inspire and support entrepreneurs from the Little Village community.
It was noted by many leaders that the Little Village business corridor is the second highest revenue producer in Chicago outside of the Magnificent Mile. Not only will Xquina continue to support current business owners, but will also spur growth by encouraging and supporting new entrepreneurs.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said it best, ‘This community is active and dynamic and important to the life blood of our city. And all of this is possible thanks to the combined forces of public and private sources.’
This project has been a combined effort of public and private support. More recently Xquina was granted a $250k fund from the Illinois Office of Minority Economic Empowerment (OMEE) through DCEO. The grant will help further the project development and ulitmiately support the minority business owners in the community with programming and training.
Erin Guthrie, Director of DCEO, commemorated the groundbreaking and funding by saying, ‘On behalf of the governor I’m honored to join the Little Village Chamber of Commerce…to celebrate the launch of a transformative project that will spur innovation and opportunity for many businesses in our thriving Little Village business corridor.”
The overall sentiment from all community and state leaders was of excitement and pride that this project will build up an already thriving economy in the Little Village community.
Impact
Juan Saldana, principal at P3 Markets, wrapped up the presentations with a story about the difficulties in getting the Xquina project off the ground. Over the course of the three years of planning there was a time that this project may not have come to fruition. Juan goes on to say “…we all heard that voice. Where are we from and what are we made of. The answer is we are from Chicago, and let me tell you something about our people we never give up until the job is finished. That energy is going to be contained in this building.”
P3 Markets goal has always been to support local businesses and development with public and private partnerships in real estate, especially minority-led communities. We strive to impact these communities with wealth and prosperity while maintaining cultural relevance.
Juan Saldana went on to explain, “When we say impact is about changing outcomes we mean transformation. When we say community wealth we mean black and brown prosperity. When we say culturally relevant we mean Latino, Native/Indigeneous and diversity. So welcome everyone to walk through these doors, on this corner, in this Xquina, and remember this new future belongs to you.”
P3 Markets appreciates the support of Chicago Community Trust and The McCormick Foundation to make this project into a reality. We look forward to continuing to build many more relationships to impact the development and completion of the Xquina Café project.
To get involved please contact us today.