Xchange Chicago Is Building An Innovation Hub On The South Side
Xchange Chicago Is Building An Innovation Hub On The South Side
By Tia Carol Jones
A new $20 million technology training center in Grand Crossing will help create career pathways for people in the community. Xchange Chicago was formed by the Comer Science and Education Foundation and P33.
Xchange Chicago began with an idea from the Grand Crossing community two and a half years ago as part of the Chicago Prize. The grant was launched in 2019 by the Pritzker Traubert Foundation to invest in community-led initiatives focused on improving residents’ quality of life.
P33 has a vision of what tech equity in Chicago can look like and that the city can be a better version of Silicon Valley, by having a more diverse workforce and a more inclusive economy, which will change the face of tech.
“With that idea, we thought what a better place to start that than in Grand Crossing, where the Comer Education Campus had already made quite a large footprint around education, youth development, youth enrichment and really had been working with and in the community for about 25 years,” said Emily Emmerman, Strategic Development and Special Projects for Xchange Chicago.
With the inclusion of Xchange Chicago’s facility, which will be located at 7247 S. Chicago Ave., Comer’s education corridor will transform into an innovation corridor. Emmerman said Xchange Chicago’s focus on career development is the missing piece to what’s needed in a community that is tackling education, opportunities for young people, and food justice.
The facility will house commercial tenants, which will bring business and jobs to the community, as well as training programs for people in the surrounding community. The goal is for Xchange Chicago to be a tech hub on the South side of Chicago, with the hope its model can scale to other communities.
There is also a hope that corporate Chicago would onshore their IT spending and redirect it back to Chicago, at a time where most corporations are still offshoring their IT needs.
“Wouldn’t it be amazing if we took a small percentage of that and we onshored it, we brought it back to Chicago and we trained up diverse talent, that exists in our communities already, and we were servicing these IT contracts right here locally in Chicago,” Emmerman said.
From the outset, members of the community worked with Comer. The community benefits from the vibrancy of having these kinds of businesses in the community because it helps build wealth.
Construction on the facility began in May, with an anticipated tenant move-in date of January 2025 and the goal of it being fully operational by Spring 2025. SDI Presence, an IT service provider located in the Chicagoland area, has announced that it will be the anchor tenant and will take up 75% of the building. Other tenants will be announced.
“Situated in the middle of so many new South side investments like the Obama Presidential Center, the Regal Mile Studios and the Discover Customer Care Center, the Xchange Hub will really be an engine of economic change offering jobs to hundreds that will anchor this community for a vibrant future,” said 5th Ward Alderman Desmond Yancy in a statement.
Even though the building isn’t open yet, Xchange Chicago has been operating for a year. It has been using a 5,000 square foot training space at 7421 S. Chicago, adjacent to the Just Christ Ministries. Emmerman said the people with Operation Neighborhood Safety have been working with Comer, as well as referring people to Xchange Chicago’s training programs. Xchange Chicago has trained a cohort of seven network technicians, who now have full-time jobs. A second cohort of five business analysts have completed and are working at SDI Presence. . People’s Gas has also hired three apprentices and are looking to hire up to 20 apprentices. Oak Street Health has also signed on.
“We’re thrilled at the response of corporate Chicago. It does seem like this is a model that they are really interested in supporting,” Emmerman said.
For more information about Xchange Chicago, visit xchangechicago.org.
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