Beginnings
The Boxville effort began in 2014 with a single shipping container — the Bronzeville Bike Box. The Bike Box offers neighbors and commuters with bike sales and repair services, meeting their needs for transportation and community.
Boxville was born in 2017 out of the overwhelming support of the Bike Box concept with the addition of 4 shipping containers and the recruitment of 15 local businesses. It quickly became a thriving weekly market, doubling its footprint again in 2018 with the addition of Neighborhood Square, which provides space for the community to gather as well as a venue for cultural celebrations and programming.
Since then, the development has continued to grow. Today Boxville is a year-round operation with 17 shipping containers and the capacity to host up to 20 enterprises on site.
Economic Opportunity
The Boxville approach disrupts the cycle of disinvestment, disengagement, and blight in inner city communities. The typical starting point for inner city commerce is a dilapidated building consisting of several, mostly-empty retail slots, building systems in disarray, and an abundance of debris. Rehabilitation of such buildings can take years, if it is possible at all, due to the volume of work required and the difficulty of securing capital to fund it. In the best case, a single retail slot can be rehabilitated on its own, that process requiring 5-6 months at minimum and, for typical use as a restaurant, a capital investment ranging from $100,000 to $1 million, depending on size and type. This is an insurmountable raise for most minority entrepreneurs.
Unfortunately, rehabilitating a space is just the first challenge for the typical inner city entrepreneur. Unlike entrepreneurs in highly-capitalized neighborhoods, which have an abundance of pedestrian traffic, they must now attract patrons back to their retail district, overcoming barriers created by blighted properties and vacant stores on all sides, as well as patrons’ decades-old concerns about violence and preconceptions about a lack of quality offerings in their neighborhoods. Few inner city enterprises survive the initial capital hurdle.
Boxville is part of Urban Juncture’s Build Bronzeville initiative, which is focused on revitalization of Chicago’s historic Bronzeville community. Build Bronzeville both demonstrates the capabilities and past impact of Urban Juncture, and provides the broader set of partnerships, resources, and support mechanisms that will facilitate Boxville’s success.