A group of 27 hardworking Black immigrant businesswomen have invested nearly half $300,000 in a commercial real estate cooperative and acquired the multi-million-dollar Shingle Creek Center strip mall. The mall, with 18 storefronts, is located in Brooklyn Center, a working-class suburb where roughly a quarter of residents were born in another country. Ignite Business Women Investment Group shows how occupants of retail spaces can own those spaces collectively, leasing them to each other and investing in them together. While immigrants create new businesses with new jobs for the local economy, lack of access to space or the right kind of space can hold them back from creating more jobs. Many of Ignite’s members have spent the past decade running their businesses out of suburban office buildings rather than storefronts.

Read Full Story


More: