GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Last month, the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce released some staggering statistics: In Grand Rapids, 98% of revenue generated comes from white-owned businesses. To boot, of all the businesses in the city that make $250,000 annually, fewer than 1% of them are Black or Brown owned.
The numbers came as no surprise to Preston Sain, president of Black Wall Street Grand Rapids (BWSGR), but they did come as a great disappointment. He knows what’s standing in the way of progress.
“Some of the historical barriers are access to capital, resources, relationships and just opportunities,” he said.
BWSGR is a group dedicated to recreating a local version of the illustrious original Black Wall Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma, before its deadly destruction in 1921 at the hands of a racist mob.
Since their inception in July of 2020, BWSGR has worked to acquire and develop real estate with the goal of building up Black- and Brown-owned business districts. The corner of Eastern and Burton, a place historically home to Black- and Brown-owned businesses, will be the flagship district — the area the group is prioritizing first before its seven other districts (Oakdale SE, Madison Square, Madison & Hall, Neland & MLK, Eastern & MLK, Boston Square, and Grandville Avenue).
Go a mile up the road, Sain says, and you’ll find yourself in the thriving Alger Heights business district. A mile in the other direction puts you in the Wealthy Street corridor. But in between, there are only remnants of a once-prosperous area that has been underdeveloped and underfunded for many years.
“We want to revive that and bring that back and compliment the other vibrant neighborhoods and communities and business districts in the areas and making sure we’re a part of that fabric as well,” said Sain. “We’re better together, and we all do better when we all do better.”
Last week, BWSGR released images that are the first glimpse at a new era of business in Grand Rapids: renderings of the 35,000-square-foot building they’ll construct at the intersection of their flagship district at Eastern and Burton. The massive, $15 million mixed-use project will feature retail space on the bottom and 34 units of housing on the upper floors. Several other housing developments unrelated to BWSGR are also going up in the area soon, and Sain is competing against time to build something for the new residents to do, somewhere for them to shop, and something for them to be proud of. He’s already been in touch with entrepreneurs of color, and has a lot of ideas for the retail space in the new building, which is set to break ground around the New Year.
“A small coffee shop, brewery, flower shop, ice cream shop, small restaurant, boutiques, fitness studios, hair salon, hair store,” he said. “You name it, man, we want to be able to pack it all right here.”
The only building currently operating on that block is a nail salon. Sain has already been in talks with them to either buy them out or include them in the new development. The project will break ground in early 2023.
“We want to bring some intentionality around. How do we carve out space for Black and Brown people to where we know the success will be there? Because there’s going to be a collective effort and intentionality around making sure these communities thrive,” said Sain. “It’s our counter and our alternative to gentrification; that’s how we like to say it.”
BWSGR has longer-term goals, too. In coordination with the hundredth anniversary of the Tulsa massacre last year, the group launched a capital campaign to raise $100 million in 16 years: 100 million for the 100th anniversary of Tulsa and 16 for the number of years it took to build the original Black Wall Street in Oklahoma.
To learn more about Black Wall Street Grand Rapids, click here.
