UChicago heats up retail accelerator

Three black-owned consumer retail startups have become the inaugural members of an accelerator and shopping arcade formed by University of Chicago’s Arts + Public Life initiative.
The newly-launched L1 Creative Business Accelerator lies beneath a section of Chicago’s distinctive overground metro network – the “L” – in a disused station dating back to 1892.
The arcade will act as the commerce-focused division of University of Chicago’s Arts Block, an extension to its existing plans for a wider arts and culture district.
Arts + Public Life identified the shop tenants as Reformed School, a purveyor of art and fashion products, along with bath and body care retailer Hemp Heals Body Shop and men’s grooming brand Solo Noir.
The owners of all three retail stores – Peter Gaona, Tifanny Joi and Andrea Polk – will commence their occupancies while undertaking fellowship studies designed to give them a grounding in sustainable retail models.
Gaona, Joi and Polk had booked their opportunity after impressing the jury in a 20-month small business fellowship, undertaken by 55 applicants, all of whom possessed prior entrepreneurial experience.
According to federal employment surveys cited by Arts +Public, almost 450,000 active African-American business owners in the US lost their companies in the first quarter of 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Isis Ferguson, arts and public life interim co-deputy director and association director of city and community strategy at Arts + Public Life, said: “We are thrilled to welcome these outstanding Black-owned businesses to the Arts Block as models for the entrepreneurial possibilities in Washington Park, particularly in these very trying times.”