With IFF Lending and Real Estate Support, BandWith Chicago Builds Space for Community May 7, 2026

When the band program at LEARN Campbell Charter School was eliminated in 2013, Annie Palomino decided that her students deserved more. Not wanting them to miss out on the benefits of arts instruction, Palomino founded BandWith Chicago, with the nonprofit bridging the gap by offering an after-school music program for students at the school in Chicago’s East Garfield Park neighborhood.  

As a start-up organization, Palomino operated BandWith on her own, working out of donated space, raising the money needed to operate the program, and teaching students herself. Over time, Palomino grew her team and the organization’s programs, expanding BandWith’s horizons. With that growth came a choice: branch out to provide similar services in neighborhoods across Chicago, or lay down roots in East Garfield Park and build a long-term home there. For Palomino, the choice was clear. “Part of the mission is that we’re going to be a lasting resource for the community,” she says. “So once you say, ‘We’re a community-based organization,’ then ultimately you need a facility.” 

Palomino partnered with IFF to make that goal a reality. Starting in 2023, BandWith worked with IFF’s Real Estate Solutions team to prepare the organization to acquire, renovate, and operate a facility all its own for the first time. That ultimately led BandWith to a 25,000-square-foot facility that was previously home to a casket factory. In November 2024, three loans from IFF totaling $3.25 million enabled BandWith to move forward with its plan to buy the building and transform the historic structure into a purpose-built space for the organization’s programs. IFF’s Real Estate Solutions continued to support BandWith as the project moved forward, serving as the owner’s representative to see the renovation process through. 

In November 2025, BandWith officially opened its new headquarters and realized its long-held goal to create a permanent home for the organization. With 21,000 square feet of space available, BandWith has since expanded its work beyond just students, with the organization now hosting classes for adults and events for the entire community. And BandWith has long since branched out beyond after-school music classes — the facility features band and choir rehearsal spaces, mirror-lined dance studios, individual practice rooms, and a recording studio complete with drums, guitars, and pianos.  

“Originally, BandWith was a band program; now, we offer band, choir, dance, drumline, and studio engineering,” says Chris Smith, BandWith’s program director. “From us operating for over 10 years in donated space, to now being able to provide programming in our own space, the opportunities are really endless.” 

Above all, the physical space itself creates room for the community to gather. “It’s a community center and a community space,” Smith explains. The building’s wide, airy lobby is furnished with couches where people chat after classes and gather for events. BandWith also built a special listening library using funding it received in 2025 as a Culture Forward Chicago gift recipient through the Chicago’s Cultural Treasures initiative. Filled with vinyl records and record players, CDs and boomboxes, speakers and headphone sets, the room is specifically designed to encourage people to gather together for a shared experience of listening to and engaging with music. 

“It feels like we’re immediately at home, that we have the resources that we need more than ever before,” Palomino says. “And we’re ready to get to work.” 

Watch the video below to hear more about the impact BandWith’s new headquarters has had on the organization and its community, and click through the photo gallery to explore the space.