News

South Side Group Gets $5 Million City Grant To Bring Tech Workforce Center To Greater Grand Crossing

• Block Club Chicago

A workforce development center that will fuel the next generation of tech leaders could soon open in Greater Grand Crossing, creating a “beacon of innovation and impact” on the South Side, project leaders said.

Leaders at the Comer Education Campus received a $5 million community development grant from the city this month to build Xchange Grand Crossing. The 50,000-square-foot hub at 7301 South Chicago Ave. will train and employ neighbors interested in jobs in the tech industry.

The $27 million project is the “extension of decades of community development that the Comer Foundation has done in Grand Crossing,” Emily Emmerman, special projects director, said. Local community partners — including CHAMPS Male Mentoring, Ring of Hope, Network for Young Adult Success, Community Neighborhood Initiatives and more — joined forces with the campus for one of the “biggest, all-hands-on-deck projects to date,” Emmerman said.

Blackhawks plan $65 million expansion of West Side practice facility

• Crain's Chicago Business

The Chicago Blackhawks have struck a deal with Rush University Medical Center to acquire a 7-acre site next to the team’s Fifth Third Arena hockey facility, where the team plans to build a $65 million, two-rink expansion of its Near West Side hockey venue.

The land sale agreement, disclosed today in an ordinance submitted to the City Council, would tee up a 135,000-square-foot development that would double the size of the Hawks’ hockey complex on the block and add a new venue for the team and youth hockey players near the United Center.

The Blackhawks’ purchase price will pay Rush back for the $17.5 million it spent to acquire the hospital’s portion of the Malcolm X campus and include nearly $6 million that will be put toward the Sankofa Wellness Village project at 4301 W. Madison St. in West Garfield Park, according to the planning department.

Pritzker Traubert Foundation January Newsletter

• PTF January Newsletter

I hope that everyone had an opportunity to enjoy the end of year holidays. Pritzker Traubert Foundation (PTF) is sharing this newsletter with the goal of building more partnerships in the coming year.

Like many of you, we believe that economic opportunity should not be dependent on if you were born on the Southside, Westside, or Northside of Chicago. From our investment in the Chicago Prize to our support for innovative and sustainable workforce solutions, the Foundation continues to support partnerships and leaders that create more economic opportunity across the city. We had an impactful and productive 2022 that included several major workforce investments, the launch of Chicago Prize 2022 and several key citywide partnerships such as the Chicago Public Media/Sun Times merger, but there is much more to do.

West Side group wins $10M to create walkable village with grocery stores, arts center, clinic

• Chicago Sun-Times

The Garfield Park Rite to Wellness Collaborative plans to build a walkable village in West Garfield Park, and its project will get $10 million from the Pritzker Traubert Foundation as part of the foundation’s 2022 Chicago Prize.

Leaders from the foundation announced the winner Thursday afternoon.

The group was one of six South and West side finalists for the prize that were announced last year. Its project, the Sankofa Wellness Village, will allow residents to be no more than 15 minutes from what they need — from health care and groceries to arts and entertainment.

Garfield Park Rite to Wellness Collaborative Receives $10 Million Chicago Prize

• RUSH University Medical Center

RUSH is proud to be a part of the Garfield Park Rite to Wellness Collaborative, which was just announced as the winner of the Pritzker Traubert Foundation 2022 Chicago Prize, including a $10 million award. The prize was announced this afternoon.

This is a key step in RUSH’s work aimed at improving community well-being and elevating life expectancy for residents of West Garfield Park.

The collaborative, a group of residents, faith-based organizations, health care institutions, nonprofits and other stakeholders that work and live in Chicago’s Garfield Park neighborhood, will use the prize to build a wellness village in the community. It will include the RUSH Center for Community Well-Being. Groundbreaking is anticipated by the end of this year.

Pritzker Traubert Foundation names Chicago Prize finalists

• Crain's Chicago Business

The Pritzker Traubert Foundation named six finalists for the 2022 Chicago Prize award. The prize grants funds to help accelerate investment-ready projects, creating economic opportunity for residents on the South and West sides.

The prize provides capital to initiatives that focus on creating lasting change in historically disinvested neighborhoods. Of the six finalists, one project will receive the Chicago Prize of $10 million, while the other five get $500,000 matching fund grants.

Established in 2019, the prize aims to help accelerate investment-ready projects, offering technical assistance and creating economic opportunity for residents on the South and West sides of Chicago. The two-year process involves a team of advisors comprising civic leaders and development experts.

The Aspire Center: A timeline

• Journal of Oak Park and River Forest

The Austin community’s ASPIRE Initiative will kickstart this year with the launch of the Aspire Center for Workforce Innovation project.

● 2020: The ASPIRE Initiative was developed in response to the $10 million Chicago Prize opportunity provided by the Pritzker Traubert Foundation. The effort incorporates several goals and ideas from the community’s AFT plan and outlines how Austin can build a stronger cradle-to-career pipeline through four investments strategically clustered around existing assets in an area bound by Madison, Chicago, Central, and Laramie Avenues: The Aspire Education & Wellness Campus; Aspire Austin College & Career Academy; The Aspire Center for Workforce Innovation; and Aspire Housing. ASPIRE is named among the six finalists and starts garnering investments.

● 2021: Years of work advances in just several months due to the Chicago Prize opportunity. Although not selected as the winning project, the process confirms the need for prioritizing one of ASPIRE’s four projects. With this in mind, the ASPIRE Center for Workforce Innovation was selected to serve as a starting point to catalyze the development of ASPIRE’s full set of Initiative Projects.

Chicago Public Media Announces Its Acquisition of the Chicago Sun-Times

• WBEZ

Chicago Public Media announced today that the Chicago Sun-Times is now a nonprofit, as a subsidiary of Chicago Public Media – marking the beginning of a landmark partnership between two storied news brands, the Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ Chicago, to grow and strengthen local journalism in Chicago. This creates one of the largest nonprofit news organizations in the country and the organization will reach more than 2 million Chicagoans a week.

Chicago Public Media also announced that it has raised $61 million in philanthropic support for this transformational opportunity for Chicago from national and local foundations and individual donors who share a belief in journalism’s critical role in informing the public, strengthening local communities, and safeguarding democracy.

Obama Presidential Center auditorium to be named after Elie Wiesel

• Jewish Insider

The auditorium at the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago will be named after Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, as part of an effort to honor “civil rights and social justice leaders whose significant contributions to society advanced justice and equality in America,” the Obama Foundation announced on Thursday.

The space was sponsored by Obama Foundation board member Penny Pritzker and her husband, Dr. Bryan Traubert.

“Elie Wiesel endured the unimaginable evils of the Holocaust and emerged as the world’s conscience in the struggle for human rights,” Pritzker said in a statement. “His unrelenting activism and prolific writing after bearing witness to such horrors is a call to each of us to never become indifferent. A more just and peaceful world is always possible.”

Pritzker Traubert Foundation announces second $10 million Chicago Prize

• Crain's Chicago Business

“We’re announcing the Chicago Prize 2022,” said Bryan Traubert, who leads the foundation with his wife, former U.S. Commerce Secretary and billionaire Penny Pritzker. “We’re going to provide $10 million in capital to a community-led initiative. There has to basically be some real estate development to produce economic impact, create jobs, help businesses and essentially try to increase the wealth in those communities for workers, entrepreneurs, residents.”

The second edition of the award, announced this morning, will also spend another $5 million to help the neighborhood teams vying for the prize develop their ideas and their potential to earn future philanthropic money.