From Vacant to Vibrant: A Revitalized Community Asset Sets the Stage for Austin’s Next Chapter August 27, 2025

“This is more than a building,” said Darnell Shields in a recent interview. “This is a symbol of what happens when people come together; when a community dares to dream and doesn’t give up.” Shields, the executive director of nonprofit Austin Coming Together (ACT), was referring to the newly opened Aspire Center for Workforce Innovation, a 76,500-square-foot hub for workforce training and wealth-building programs in the Austin neighborhood on Chicago’s West Side.  

A collaboration between ACT, which was formed in 2010 to provide backbone support to the network of social service institutions serving the neighborhood, and longtime IFF customer Westside Health Authority (WHA), the facility owner and co-developer, the Aspire Center has breathed new life into a building that sat vacant for more than a decade. And while the reopening of the building is symbolic of a fresh start along a key commercial corridor in the community, it’s also a tangible investment in Austin’s future that will create jobs, support local small businesses, connect residents to resources, and provide a high-quality venue for community members to gather and build connections to continue propelling the neighborhood forward. 

To accomplish this, the Aspire Center is bringing together a variety of organizations to offer programming and resources in an easily accessible location. This includes ACT – which connects residents to housing assistance, legal assistance, food assistance, digital resources for students and families, workforce development and job assistance programs, services for older adults, and more via a walk-in center – as well as WHA, a nonprofit community development organization that offers comprehensive programs focused on reentry and employment support for citizens returning from incarceration, youth employment support and mentoring, community wellness, property development, and economic development. In addition to this core work, WHA is a partner in The Culture, a hyperlocal media outlet serving Chicago’s West Side that’s now based in WHA’s offices at the Aspire Center.  

Elsewhere in the building, another IFF customer, Jane Addams Resource Corporation (JARC), is operating a manufacturing workforce training center designed to equip trainees with the skills needed to find, secure, and sustain employment in high-growth industries. By relocating its headquarters to the Aspire Center, the organization tripled its space and anticipates being able to provide more than 2,000 West Siders with hands-on training by 2030 as a result. Legal Aid Chicago, which provides free legal assistance in civil cases to ensure that limited income isn’t an impediment to justice, also has a new community intake site in the Aspire Center, alongside a new satellite location for the Cook County Public Defender’s Office, called the Freedom Center. 

BMO has also opened a new bank branch in the facility where financial education, coaching, and banking services are provided – helping to increase access to capital in Austin and advance the Aspire Center’s goal to support community wealth-building. And, more tenants are expected to move into the Aspire Center in the coming months, with the building’s third floor renovated to white box status in preparation for occupants who meet additional community needs.   

Throughout the interior of the Aspire Center and outside, public spaces have been created to provide local residents and organizations with places to gather and build community. This prominently includes the building’s three-story, glass-enclosed lobby – a visually striking entrance designed to draw visitors into the facility and send a message to the community about Austin’s upward trajectory. 

“The motivation for the addition of the lobby was to create a destination where people can hang out, gather for a meeting, or host an event without having to go downtown,” explains Shields. “The community is starving for beauty, and we’ve created a beacon that makes a statement about the change we’re catalyzing in the area. We hope it helps community members who visit the building see themselves as worthy, valuable, and just as beautiful as their surroundings.” 

To realize their transformational vision for the Aspire Center, ACT and WHA tapped a large group of partners to support the redevelopment of the facility – each of which brought specialized expertise to the project. IFF’s Real Estate Solutions team provided predevelopment support that included help applying for funding, general contractor procurement, and partnering with Lamar Johnson Collaborative – the architect for the project – to advance design plans to a point where permits for the project could be secured. Once construction began, Project Management Advisors served as the owner’s representative, helping to ensure that the work taking place at the site was aligned with ACT and WHA’s goals for the project.  

To finance the $40.8 million revitalization of the property, ACT and WHA leveraged a diverse set of public and private sources that included a $10 million State of Illinois Capital grant that IFF helped bridge with a $3.33 million loan alongside Enterprise Community Loan Fund and Chicago Community Loan Fund, each of which also provided $3.33 million loans; $12.25 million in City of Chicago Tax Increment Financing (TIF); contributions from BMO and United Way of Metro Chicago ($5.09 million), Blue Cross and Blue Shield ($250,000), the Pritzker Traubert Foundation ($500,000), The Chicago Community Trust ($2.01 million), the Joyce Foundation ($50,000), community residents ($20,000), and an anonymous donor ($200,000); and $10.43 million in New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) allocation from Chicago Development Fund, BMO Harris, Chase New Markets Corporation, Cinnaire, and Enterprise, with JPMorganChase serving as the equity investor. Crow Island Community Capital served as the NMTC consultant for the project, helping to navigate the complex process required to apply for and secure NMTCs for large-scale development efforts like the Aspire Center.  

“We came into this project without experience developing a project of this size but, as a ‘community quarterback’ organization, we recognized that we needed to step up in the moment,” says Shields. “To be able to do that, we relied heavily on a lot of partners to navigate the process. We’ve been able to do more than we imagined and have exceeded our own expectations for what the Aspire Center could be.” 

A cornerstone of the community once more

While the Aspire Center would be highly impactful in most communities, it’s particularly welcome in Austin given the history of the neighborhood and the facility. Once home primarily to European immigrants who flocked to the area in the late 1800s in pursuit of affordable living in an amenity-rich community with easy access to the rest of the city via streetcars and trains, Austin’s demographics shifted rapidly in the 1970s. Black residents, seeking the same opportunities as those who helped establish the community decades earlier, began moving to Austin after the passage of the Fair Housing Act. Their arrival resulted in a period of rapid white flight – fueled by unscrupulous blockbusting tactics – during which many longtime white residents made the unfortunate decision to leave Austin. By 1980, Austin’s population was roughly 73 percent Black, and residents in the ensuing years experienced widespread disinvestment that led to blighted properties, public safety concerns, and limited economic opportunity.   

Serving as a constant in the community through it all was the building the Aspire Center is now located in, which, for nearly 120 years, was the home of Robert Emmet Elementary School. Generations of Austin residents attended school there, and the building itself served as an important anchor at the corner of Madison St. and Central Ave. along a bustling commercial corridor. In 2013, the school closed, creating a void in the community that remained for more than a decade as the facility sat vacant.  

“When the doors of Emmet Elementary School closed, many in Austin felt the sting of the loss,” explained Shields in an interview with Block Club Chicago. “It was more than a school; it was the heartbeat of this community.”  

In the face of adversity, however, Austin residents never stopped striving to strengthen the community. In 2018, ACT spearheaded the creation of the community’s first quality-of-life plan. Capturing input from more than 500 local stakeholders over 20 months, the plan outlined seven issue areas to focus on in the decade ahead, with associated strategies and tactics to advance the work. Among the community’s priorities were to reconstruct the community narrative, stimulate economic development, and empower young people in Austin, who make up approximately 60 percent of neighborhood residents – all of which are addressed by the Aspire Center.  

In a nod to the facility’s history and landmark status among longtime Austin residents, the Aspire Center has retained a variety of the building’s original architectural elements. The high-ceilinged classrooms and wide hallways are still present, as are original staircases adorned with ornamental trim. Many of the hardwood floors have been restored, and the building’s past is further reflected in repurposed items like benches created from old wooden lockers and school auditorium seats that now line hallways in the building. Additionally, some of the new office spaces and hallways still feature the building’s original wooden built-in cabinetry. 

“There’s been a disconnect in Austin between how we see our community and how it’s depicted by folks who may not necessarily have experienced Austin firsthand, and that does weigh heavily on the potential for things to change for the better,” says Shields. “And so we’ve really tried to develop strategies to own our own narrative and to create opportunities for people to experience our community in the way that we do, and developing a space like the Aspire Center that will bring people to Austin is an example of that. At the same time, we recognized that the resources that have existed in Austin haven’t always aligned with the needs of young people in the community, and the Aspire Center also addresses that by creating a single location where they can access resources that improve their lives.”  

Learn about additional community-strengthening building projects in Illinois that IFF has helped to facilitate