Two years ago, Walmart closed it’s Chatham supercenter—along with three other smaller Chicago stores — with only two hours’ notice to the local alderperson who fought for it.
Then Ald. Howard Brookins (21st) was told the store was hemorrhaging money because of rampant theft and higher security costs after being renovated and reopened following the civil unrest that devolved into looting after the 2020 murder of George Floyd.
On Wednesday, a bitter pill for the South Side to swallow moved one step closer to becoming a golden opportunity.
The City Council’s Transportation Committee agreed to subdivide the property at 83rd and Stewart to pave the way for Walmart to donate its former training facility to the Chicago Urban League to help the organization bolster its own programming.
The more than 15,000-square-foot Walmart Academy building would become the Urban League’s Empowerment Center with training in workforce development, entrepreneurship and innovation all under one roof.
The new building is one of the most significant donations in Urban League history. Ald. Ronnie Mosley (21st), Brookins’ successor, was overjoyed.
“Wow. The difference that two years makes,” Mosley said, recalling the “tough time” that followed Walmart’s “business decision” to close four Chicago stores it claimed had never been profitable.
Mosley said the investment that Walmart is making in a community it abandoned is “bigger than just the building.”
He pointed to the Urban League’s 2023 “State of Black Chicago” report that highlighted glaring economic disparities between Black and white residents in the city. In addition to the racial divide in life expectancy, the median household income for white residents is more than double the average for African-Americans, the report said.
The expanded center is “literally going to build bridges to cover those gaps of equity” through recruiting and training — and even guiding African-Americans on how to buy and finance a home, Mosley said.
“The Urban League serves everyone and they do a phenomenal job in serving Black people. They are now coming to the ward where the most Black people live. To have that level of access, to me, is unprecedented,” Mosley said.
Chicago Urban League President and CEO Karen Freeman-Wilson described the new center as “catalytic” and a “gift to this community.” It will help her organization “expand our footprint…even further south.”
“We’re gonna maintain our location at 45th and Michigan. But we’ll have an opportunity to do some unique things around not just workforce, but HVAC, around solar sales and installation, other green energy projects and to work with neighborhood organizations,” Freeman-Wilson said.
Walmart’s donation to the Urban League followed a competitive selection process. The gift includes the classroom and meeting facility, plus administrative furniture and training equipment, including HVAC and dental equipment.
The gift will launch workforce training in new areas, including dental hygiene, artificial intelligence, electric vehicle infrastructure and electrification technology.
Noting that the training center will be separated from a larger parcel that included the shuttered supercenter, Freeman said, “We hope to have neighbors because this is certainly an opportunity to activate the corridor.”
In 2004, a bitterly divided City Council gave Walmart zoning approval to build its first Chicago store in Austin but handed the retailer a one-vote defeat in Chatham.
After asking colleagues to vote for the Walmart in his ward, Brookins was angered to see some Council members “vote for one and not the other for no logical reason.”The controversy gave birth to the big-box minimum-wage ordinance aborted by then-Mayor Richard M. Daley’s 2006 veto.
Organized labor subsequently spent millions to elect a more union-friendly City Council. The political donnybrook did not end until 2010, when the City Council approved a second Walmart in the Far South Side’s Pullman Park community, paving the way for a $1 billion Walmart expansion that changed the face of retailing in Chicago.
It happened after Walmart and organized labor cut an unprecedented deal that called for the world’s largest retailer to pay its starting Chicago employees at least $8.75 an hour — 50 cents above what was then Illinois’ minimum wage.
The Chatham supercenter opened in January 2012. It reopened after the civil unrest, only to close in April, 2023.