Urban Market Exchange Offers Small Business Owners A Place To Grow

Quandra Speights is the Founder of Urban Exchange Market. PHOTO PROVIDED BY OVERFLOW® ENTERPRISES.
Quandra Speights is the Founder of Urban Exchange Market. PHOTO PROVIDED BY OVERFLOW® ENTERPRISES.

Urban Market Exchange Offers Small Business Owners A Place To Grow

By Tia Carol Jones

Working with small businesses is something that Quandra Speights is passionate about. She decided to follow her passion and work in the community to support economic and workforce development with an organization that helps and supports small businesses in disadvantaged communities. Her experience going through that organization’s entrepreneurship program and another program through the YWCA led her to develop the Urban Market Exchange.

Speights realized that small business owners and entrepreneurs needed a space for those businesses, in order for them to grow, scale and build capacity. The Urban Market Exchange is aimed at providing small business owners and entrepreneurs with a space for them to make their goods and sell them. Speights envisions the Urban Market Exchange as a place where Black entrepreneurs can start their businesses, while gaining valuable skills, and the community can also utilize the space.

The Urban Market Exchange, will be located at 6700 S. Rhodes. The 7,000 square foot building will have workshop spaces, space for a pop-up store, studio spaces, a makerspace and specialty rooms, with a café and community space. There will also be affordable housing upstairs, with commercial space on the first floor. Speights said the space is also for the community and she wants the makers to share their talents with the community. The anticipated opening date for the Urban Market Exchange is March of 2026.

With the Urban Market Exchange, Speights wants to bring manufacturing back to the communities where those kinds of businesses once thrived, but due to disinvestment, had to close. She said she wants people who use the space to be able to grow, scale and hire people who live in the community, which can create an ecosystem of economic development where people who live and work in the community spend money in those communities and help spur redevelopment.

“It’s a great way to help scale a lot of these Black businesses and minority businesses in the community, to reduce the overhead. A lot of them can’t afford the rent, they can’t afford an establishment, they can’t afford the equipment. Now we can bring them into our establishment, and we’ll provide specialized equipment,” she said.

The Urban Market Exchange will have the equipment small business owners and entrepreneurs need to run their businesses, including fabrication studio spaces. Speights said it is her hope that people who use the space are able to open their own restaurants, stores, and other businesses in the community, and enable them to pour back into the community. The Urban Market Exchange will also provide business support services so they can open stores in the community.

Speights said Woodlawn is just the beginning. She hopes spaces like Urban Market Exchange can be located across the city. She said she chose Woodlawn because it is a historical African American community, with a lot of small businesses that are already there, which shows it is a viable location for entrepreneurs and makers.

“My overall vision is to put more minority and Black businesses back into our communities. The only way we can do that is to help them scale and grow their businesses. In order for them to do that, we have to be able to provide them with the tools and the resources,” she said.

For more information about the Urban Market Exchange, visit www.urbanmarketexchange.com.


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