ENGLEWOOD — South Side organizers are joining forces to turn a vacant Chicago Public Schools building into a community hub where neighbors can receive services, food and educational resources.
Grow Greater Englewood received full City Council support Tuesday to begin the work to transform the former Hayes Admin Building, 6529-6533 S. Stewart Ave., into the Ujima Hive Resiliency Hub.
Led by Grow Greater Englewood, the project is a collaborative effort of local organizations, including Teamwork Englewood, Urban Growers Collective, Urban Tech Academy and BlackRoots Alliance.
The building will be rezoned into a neighborhood commercial district, allowing the Englewood organizations to build about 30,331 square feet of commercial space, a restaurant with a shared kitchen, a workforce development training space and a community garden.
The hub will have 27 parking spaces and a new lobby while maintaining the building’s original three-story structure, according to the zoning application.
The former CPS building has been vacant since at least 2017, according to a WBEZ report. The Greater Southwest Development Corp. bought the building with hopes of converting the space into co-ed dorms for students at Kennedy-King College.
When those plans didn’t materialize, Grow Greater Englewood bought the building from the development group in 2022 for $250,000 with the help of a Greater Chicago Food Depository grant, said Anton Seals, lead steward and co-founder at Grow Greater Englewood.
The Ujima Hive Resiliency Hub will “keep history alive in the community” by repurposing the long-vacant structure, Seals said.
“In a community that has so much space, the irony is that there aren’t many spaces where we can do things,” Seals said. “This will be a space that serves people, from the youth to our elders, the ‘Soul Train’ generation. We are each other’s responsibility, and we wanted to put that into action.”
Ujima, a Swahili word, translates to “collective work and responsibility.” It’s also the third principle in Kwanzaa, a winter holiday celebrating African and African American culture and honoring ancestors.
The Ujima Hive Resiliency Hub will be a “collective-driven” place where neighbors can gather and learn together, Seals said.
Local organizations, schools, colleges and sponsors will work together to provide direct services at the community center, Seals said. Beehyyve, an architecture and engineering firm with offices in Englewood, is the lead architect.
“So often in our capitalistic society, everyone wants to be the savior. There is no such thing. That premise is wrong. It’s our responsibility to take care of each other,” Seals said. “This isn’t about the individual. This is about the collective.”
The total cost to build the hub is about $16 million, and it will be completed in two phases, Seals said.
Organizers have received state grant funding in addition to the $500,000 grant from the Greater Chicago Food Depository, Seals said. They’ve also been fundraising and are about halfway to meeting the funding total, Seals said.
Phase one of the project will be a “market and bistro cafe”: a soup kitchen and food pantry providing services on the first floor of the building, Seals said. The remaining half of the Food Depository grant will be used for equipment in the kitchen, Seals said.
If all goes as planned, organizers will break ground on the kitchen this summer, Seals said. It could open as soon as early 2025.
If the world experiences another emergency like the pandemic, the Ujima Hive Resiliency Hub will serve as a safe haven and a source of food, water and shelter for neighbors, Seals said.
“The hive is an effort to create resiliency built out for us by us,” Seals said.
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