Case Study
St. Joseph’s accreditation was suspended in 2019 because of financial concerns. Now, the college’s space and land is being evaluated for potentially becoming an innovation center for the surrounding community. The creation of the CSJ Center for Excellence & Innovation as a community-focused Opportunity Zone project will “align, engage, and partner local government and institutions with private capital and philanthropy to address the challenges of job creation and building scalable businesses in Rutland.” Goals for the CSJ Center for Excellence and Innovation are to serve the community by “providing certificate programs, workforce training, co-working spaces, and start-up support.”
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Case Study
University Neighborhoods Development Corporation works to build and enrich campus and community environment by investing in surrounding neighborhoods. UNDC is a partnership between University of Memphis, University District Business Alliance, University District, Inc., Shelby County Division of Planning and Development, and Economic Development Growth Engine. Opportunity zones are one of their main initiatives. Their Work Local program is designed to improve the community through job access and blight reduction by providing job-seeking panhandlers with a day’s wages and a meal to clean-up sites, where they work to reduce urban blight.
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Case Study
Between 1996 and 2003, the University of Pennsylvania tripled the dollar amount of goods and services purchased from West Philadelphia businesses through their Economic Inclusion Initiative. They continue to focus on local purchasing and aim to award 20 percent of all construction contracts to minority or women-owned businesses. The University has also made great investments in Philadelphia’s neighborhoods by adding 3,800 new street trees and 850 new pedestrian street lights to residential and commercial streets. Penn supports public education by contributing over $800,000 to the neighboring Sadie Alexander Mossell Elementary School and providing landscaping services and security & expertise from Penn’s Graduate School of Education. Penn supports a variety of programs towards preparing Philadelphia’s future workforce, including training minorities to apprentice with local building trade unions and investing in the West Philadelphia Skills Initiative to align unemployed West Philadelphians with opportunities in local anchor institutions. The University funds forgivable loans enabling 1,000 participants to homes in the neighborhood near the school. By investing $150 million in retail development, Penn attracted approximately $1 billion in private investment from the real estate sector. This investment has established vibrant, pedestrian-friendly retail corridors consisting of 450,000 square feet of large and small businesses and created connections between the campus and neighborhood.
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Case Study
The Greater University Circle Initiative coordinates three large anchor institutions located in Cleveland’s University Circle area—about one-square mile of educational, cultural, and health institutions. Through this initiative, the Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals, and Case Western Reserve University networked and deployed their resources in a powerful challenge to the persistent poverty and disinvestment in seven surrounding neighborhoods. This strategy pushes against gentrification by seeking to improve the prospects and income of the 60,000 people who live in these neighborhoods. The Greater University Circle Initiative seeks to connect community networks, in part through community engagement, to improve the quality of life in surrounding neighborhoods, and to give residents a greater voice and connection to the resources of the anchor institutions. It is led by the Cleveland Foundation, the world’s first community foundation. Their goals are broadly identified as: Hire Local, Live Local, Buy Local, and Connect.
- Buy Local—increase opportunities for anchor institutions to purchase goods and services locally, and help small businesses increase their capacity to meet these needs
- Hire Local—expand efforts by anchors to hire residents from the neighborhoods, and help improve the local workforce system;
- Live Local—support and improve the employer-assisted housing program, Greater University Circle, and leverage it to help create more stable neighborhoods.
- Connect—the key to all of these efforts, using the resources and skills of organizations such as Neighborhood Connections, a grassroots grant-maker, as well as other intermediaries such as Towards Employment and Ohio Means Jobs (workforce investment board), Cleveland Neighborhood Progress (community development), BioEnterprise, MidTown, University Circle Inc., and the Economic and Community Development Institute (small business support).