Leon Walker is revitalizing communities with commercial real estate
Leon Walker, Founder and CEO DL3 Realty Advisors. Photo provide by Leon Walker
Leon Walker, Founder and CEO of DL3 Realty Advisors, got into real estate development with his family business. In the late 1960’s his parents, two school teachers, founded the Developmental Institute.
Walker comes from a family of educators that believed in community. Their investment in commercial properties to grow the education business is how Walker started. He learned about commercial real estate around the kitchen table, working with contractors and architects, at an early age.
“That really planted the seed in me of how we can execute projects that are not only important and catalytic for our communities, but provide good services,” he said.
DL3 Realty built the medical office building that helped stabilize Roseland Hospital in 2007. The realty company has done a lot of healthcare real estate with Federally Qualified Healthcare Centers. From there, DL3 Realty got into groceries, with the understanding that food is a way to bend the curve on healthcare.
He also has been focused on job creation and building community anchors, which includes quality retail. Now DL3 Realty has a group that focuses on workforce housing. There are a number of workforce housing developments in the works at key transit-oriented development sites on the South side.
Walker’s efforts now focus on looking at how the next generation can get involved in commercial real estate. He said that less than 2% of commercial real estate professionals are Black and brown. Walker is also looking at how to take the next generation of entrepreneurs and have them become the developers that are needed to execute projects.
Walker co-founded an initiative in the city called Chicago Emerging Minority Developer Initiative. At www.cemdi.org, the initiative is hosting conversations with emerging developers who want to get into the commercial real estate business. There is also support available and the initiative is working with Chicago Community Trust for funding for predevelopment to help entrepreneurs execute projects.
“They have great ideas, visions, dreams, but they need that predevelopment equity in order to start a project and get it to the closing table,” Walker said.
Walker believes that Black and brown entrepreneurs that come from the community should be supported. He also is calling the talent that has left communities to come back and bring back those educational resources. That way, the community is not asking people outside the community to do something, and the talent can start making things happen in their own communities.
DL3 Realty has developed the Discover Customer Care Center in Chatham, the Jewel-Osco in Woodlawn and the Blue Door Neighborhood Center in Morgan Park, just to name a few. These developments have helped the community to provide resources as well as provided jobs.
Walker believes that one of the ways to reverse the cycle of trauma in communities is to drive large scale investment that is concentrated in a way that it create a positive ripple effect in a neighborhood.
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