When Chicago Urban Leauge president and CEO Karen Freeman-Wilson’s colleague told her the organization should respond to Walmart’s request for proposals to redevelop its Chatham site, Freeman-Wilson remembers balking at the idea.
“I’m like, ‘That big superstore?’” Freeman-Wilson said.
But what her colleague, Chicago Urban League Vice President Andrew Wells, was referring to was the smaller building next door: The 15,000-square-foot Walmart Academy that the big box retailer used as a training center.
“He went on and on about it,” Freeman-Wilson said. “And then we came and toured the building, and I said, ‘We have to reactivate this building for the community.’”
That’s what the Urban League did on Friday, hosting a ribbon cutting for the organization’s new Empowerment Center. that provides workforce development, entrepreneurship and youth programs. It also gives the Urban League another location, joining its main office in Bronzeville.
The Urban League’s mission is to ensure Black Chicagoans have equitable opportunities across education, employment, homeownership and more, in an effort to create vibrant neighborhoods and generational wealth.
The organization’s “State of Black Chicago” report, released in June 2023, highlighted several disparities between Black and white residents in the city. For example, white residents’ median household income is more than double that of Black residents on average.
Chicago Urban Leauge board chair Suzet McKinney said the Empowerment Center is a new chapter of its mission, serving an area where more than 83% of residents are of low- to moderate-income. The center will allow the organization to expand its reach beyond the 15,000 residents it serves annually.
The Urban League served more than 6,300 job seekers and business owners in 2023 through its workforce and entrepreneurship programs. In Chatham, more than 600 residents have used the Urban League’s services over the last five years, according to the organization.
Walmart’s donation of the former training center to the group was announced in June 2024. The retailer led a “competitive and thorough” selection process for the building.
Walmart’s donation — one of the largest in the Urban League’s history — includes classroom and meeting facilities, administrative furniture and training equipment for industries such as dentistry and HVAC.
The center offers workforce training in new areas, including dental hygiene, artificial intelligence, electric vehicle infrastructure and electrification technology.
Meeting spaces will be available for small-business owners, and it can be used by nonprofits in the area.
Freeman-Wilson said the Urban League is in early talks with Advocate Health to open a small outlet at the center.
“Money and power mean nothing if you don’t have your health,” she said.
Freeman-Wilson remembers when the Walmart training center and the adjacent superstore closed, drawing concern from community members and city officials. The store shuttered in April 2023, more than 10 years after its January 2012 opening.
The Urban League opened the Empowerment Center, 8331 S. Stewart Ave., once it was separated from the larger Walmart parcel, which included the former Walmart Supercenter and Walmart Health center at 8431 S. Stewart Ave.
The City Council’s Transportation Committee agreed in May to subdivide the property at 83rd Street and Stewart Avenue, much to the satisfaction of several local aldermen.
“When we say, ‘We’re the Black businesses,’ they’re going to come out of this Empowerment Center,” Ald. Ronnie Mosley (21st) said. “When we say, ‘We’re the Black homeowners,’ they’re going to come out of this Empowerment Center. When we say, ‘Were the Black trades and careers,’ they’re going to come out of this Empowerment Center.”