Early on, Loyd organized a neighborhood bike ride series with the garden as the meeting point. The seeds of Boxville were planted, so to speak, in the community garden. Red Apple across the street, if you consider it a grocery store, which he doesn't. The need is obvious, he says, ticking off names and distances of the nearest grocery stores. But a fresh produce component was still missing. In 2015, he planted another garden on the Bronzeville Cookin’ rooftop so it would be visible to L passengers-a sign of things to come-and he helped open Bronzeville Jerk Shack, one of four planned food businesses in the building. He started the Bronzeville Community Garden in 2010 on the southeast corner of 51st and Calumet Avenue. While completion of the Forum is years off, development has picked up on this well-traveled stretch of 51st Street, west of King Drive, where Loyd has been buying parcels of land, including the Boxville lot, since 2005. The city has pledged $3 million in funding and delivered on $1 million for that project, says Loyd, who also is behind the revival of the 30,000-square-foot Forum on 43rd Street, once the arts and culture hub of Bronzeville. Something’s Cooking in Bronzevilleīoxville is an extension of a $9 million revitalization project led by the MIT-educated Loyd that includes conversion of a building just west of Boxville at 300 East 51st Street, where Urban Juncture is headquartered, into a dining hub and business incubator called Bronzeville Cookin'. (Friistyle owner Corey Gilkey-of streetwear brand Leaders 1354-says he’ll hand out free food samples Wednesday.) Bronzeville Bike Box, a bike repair shop that inspired the Boxville concept, will take up the 20-foot-long, easternmost box. Other debut vendors include Aplomb, a vintage clothing and home goods boutique that currently has a pop-up location, and Friistyle, a new Belgian frites stand still under construction. Merritt and Corey Gilkey will have spaces at Boxville, selling vintage goods and creatively topped Belgian frites, respectively. "It'll be more of a community experience, not as cut-and-dried as a produce stand," said Melissa Flynn, Green City Market's executive director. As with other Green City Market locations, Produce Box will match customers’ LINK purchases up to $15. It will offer conventional produce from the family-owned Hyde Park Produce, pre-cut fruit, Italian ice, and baskets in the $20 range containing a week’s worth of produce, which customers can pre-order and even have delivered, like a subscription-free produce share. Chefs will provide food samples and demonstrate easy, one-pan recipes weekly. Green City Market will anchor half of the 40-foot, street-facing container-called Produce Box-selling produce from 4 to 7 p.m., collected that morning from farmers at the popular Lincoln Park market. Two more 20-foot containers will eventually be added, totaling six boxes and nine vendors. It’ll operate until October, shut down for the winter, and reopen again next year. "We're trying to create a progression of spaces." The Starting Lineupīoxville will be open on Wednesdays initially and ramp up to at least five days a week, according to Loyd, whose development firm Urban Juncture is spearheading the venture. "The idea was always to have a community plaza with vending opportunities, something informal," says Loyd, a Bronzeville resident and former McKinsey executive. It’s the latest project from developer Bernard Loyd, who has spent the last decade finding ways to revitalize the neighborhood-which, despite its history as the cultural and economic hub of Chicago’s African American community, has struggled to attract investment in recent years. Picture four giant metal Lego pieces, plunked down in a grassy vacant lot with a wood-planked plaza in the middle-but those Lego pieces are filled with groceries, prepared food, a boutique, and a bike repair shop. Wednesday for what organizers are calling a preview, is built out of old shipping containers. Like Geiger, they dip in and out for cigarettes, sodas, something from the fast-food counter.Īcross 51st Street, in the shadow of the CTA Green Line stop, a unique, open-air retail development nearing completion aims to change how Geiger and other residents eat, shop, and interact.īoxville, which opens at 4 p.m. The bustling convenience store has a small section of shrink-wrapped produce-pale tomatoes, cucumbers with shriveled ends, bruised apples for a buck apiece-but customers aren’t buying them. 51st St.) holding a few cans of energy drinks. The 28-year-old stood in line on a recent afternoon at Red Apple Food and Liquor (315 E. Tawanna Geiger lives in Bronzeville but rarely buys groceries near her home for one reason: "Because there's nothing in the neighborhood to buy.
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