A Chicago-based social enterprise company is purchasing the Hawthorn Crossings strip mall in north Minneapolis, promising it will build local wealth and support community development in one of the Twin Cities’ lowest-income and most diverse neighborhoods. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing Associated Press.

Lyneir Richardson, co-founder and CEO of Chicago Trend, is undertaking a crowdfunding campaign, asking nearby residents to invest a minimum of $1,000 into the Hawthorn Crossings project. He seeks to make the strip mall 49% community owned, saying that ownership of commercial real estate on West Broadway will empower the neighborhood.

“Anyone can invest. I call the effort intentionally inclusive,” Richardson said. “I am making an extra effort to invite local people to invest. … Our theory of that is that if local people invest, it’ll make the investment likely more successful because local people will care about it and protect it.”

With the remaining 51% of the property ownership remaining in Chicago Trend’s hands, the company intends to fully lease the strip mall. Based on past projects, company officials expect to own the property for at least 10 years. By 2036, they expect the return on investment to triple.

The social enterprise started by Richardson in 2016 already owns six shopping centers across the country. Having grown up in one of the lowest-income neighborhoods in West Chicago, he is passionate about revitalizing Black neighborhoods through commercial property ownership.

In Richardson’s past purchases, his investors were approximately 70% local and 30% outsiders. In an interview in early July, he declined to release the names of investors or say how many were from the North Side. But he said he would release the information after the crowdfunding campaign wrapped up.

With the rising threat of gentrification, wealth leaving the neighborhoods and the difficulty of low and middle-income residents purchasing property in north Minneapolis, Richardson comes in with a potential solution.

“When neighborhoods change, people often fear gentrification,” Richardson said. “One of the ways to deal with gentrification is for low- and moderate-income people having ownerships. So as the neighborhood gets better, we’re not just workers. … We have a little passive ownership stake. If the neighborhood changes and gets stronger, our financial condition will benefit as well.”

In 2023, McKnight Foundation invested in Richardson’s fund to support its mission. The Minnesota-based foundation requested that Trend’s next purchase be in the Twin Cities.

In a meeting, Warren McLean, president of the community-based Northside Economic Opportunity Network (NEON), sold Richardson on the Hawthorn Crossings site. It is located across the street from NEON. To McLean, north Minneapolis was the place that needed Chicago Trend’s initiative most.

“(NEON’s) vision is to transform north Minneapolis into a prosperous, physical, sustainable, highly diverse, multicultural community of entrepreneurs with emphasis on the word transformation,” McLean said. “I believe that if we get a hold of the shopping center, it would be a huge step in that direction.”

Among the project’s advocates and investors is the Rev. Alfred Babington-Johnson, founder and CEO of Stairstep Foundation and a North Side resident of 60 years. Chicago Trend’s mission immediately appealed to him.

“It was absolutely consistent with what we are interested in, which is community empowerment, capacity building and access to areas that have heretofore been off-limits,” Babington-Johnson said.

Babington-Johnson hosted numerous community gatherings, which allowed community members and North Side residents to get to know Richardson and his project. Some community leaders and residents were impressed and chose to follow Babington-Johnson.