Aspire Center for Workforce Innovation

Use your phone to open this link below and explore what the Aspire Center’s lobby will look like!

Fulfilling a key focal project from the ‘Austin Forward. Together’ (AFT) quality-of-life plan, West Side Health Authority (WHA, an ACT member organization) in partnership with Austin Coming Together (ACT) plans to repurpose a closed three-acre Chicago Public School building and site (the Emmet School, one of 50 public schools closed in 2013) to create a space where partners can work in collaboration, intersect programmatic initiatives and provide services to residents from one central location. In redeveloping the building space, the location is primed to become the physical embodiment of “collective impact” and a vital community anchor for systemic change…called the Aspire Center for Workforce Innovation!

Key partnerships will provide programming at the Aspire Center for Workforce Innovation, including youth and social service workforce development, an advanced manufacturing training center, workforce training and entrepreneurship, continuing education, youth enrichment, and education, and after school programming. 

By utilizing the Emmet School site, the Austin community will rejuvenate a vital anchor institution for all residents to use. Possible options for the area, in addition to the programming above, include space for industry partners, retail, a grocery store, a cafe, a community event auditorium, and green space. By potentially including industry, the Aspire Center will amplify training at the site and enable maximum access between service, education, and industry partners. 

Establishing the Aspire Center for Workforce Innovation in the Emmet School strongly dovetails with many of Austin’s AFT quality-of-life plan strategies in economic development and youth empowerment. These include strategies to expand and support local resources like boot camps and apprenticeships in high-demand economic sectors such as advanced manufacturing, healthcare, and building and trades; creating a new Manufacturing Training Center in Austin; investing in entrepreneurship development programs; incorporating a co-op model for local restaurants, grocery stores, and housing; attracting major commercial anchors; creating physical places where youth can gather and community-based organizations can offer services; expanding the trauma support service system for youth and families; and creating paths for youth interactions with mentors and role models.

There is a large set of adults that have been dislocated from the workforce. Low education and unemployment are some of the top contributors that affect Austin’s neighborhood status. GCI published a report in May 2019 finding that almost half of Chicago’s young black men are both out of school and out of work, which is double the national rate. In Chicago, women accounted for 30% (9,315) of adults that don’t have a job nor are attending school while men were at 45% (12,805), within the 20-24 age cohort based on the 2017 ACS data.

This research has found that employment and in-demand skillsets that undergo a perpetual change intensify these problems and causes individuals to endure hardships like rising costs of living, stagnant wages, and technological advances in work environments. The domino effect of a poor neighborhood education system and student decline leads toward an unstable local economy and contributes to a stigma of Austin.

The Center will create a seamless and collaborative location for high-performing workforce training programs that are committed to and have a track record of serving Austin residents. Westside Health Authority will own and manage the facility. The Center will be governed by input from the major tenants of the building, which include Jane Addams Resource Corporation, BMO Harris Bank, ACT’s Austin Community Hub, and WHA’s Austin Employment Center.

Organizations that are supporting the development of the Aspire Center include:

 

Are you a tradesperson interested in working on the project? Click here to learn about employment opportunities through Blinderman Construction.

 

Some notable milestones for the Aspire Center for Workforce Innovation project include:

  • The Aspire Center is anticipated to open in 2025 after construction is completed in late 2024.
  • The groundbreaking ceremony occurred on 5/3/2023. Click here to see pictures from the event.
  • Financial closing occurred in fall 2023.
  • Demolition and construction permits were initiated in May 2023; construction started in late May/early June 2023.
  • TIF funds awarded from the City of Chicago increased to $12.25M on 4/17/2023.
  • In December 2022, ACT in partnership with Westside Health Authority was joined by Mayor Lori Lightfoot, Chicago Department of Planning, Lamar Johnson Collaborative, Brown & Momen, and community partners for the ribbon-cutting ceremony and celebration of the POPF!t plaza at the Aspire Center site! Along with the development of the Aspire Center, the POPF!t site will activate the corner of Madison and Central with a fitness-themed public park. Click here to watch a video from the event.
  • In May 2022, the Aspire Center was awarded $7.25 million in funding from the City of Chicago’s Department of Planning and Development as part of the Chicago Recovery Plan, a citywide effort to catalyze a sustainable economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. Out of all grantees in round one, ASPIRE was given the largest funding amount. This support meant the Aspire Center had 90% of the funds needed to proceed with construction.
  • Throughout 2021, the prioritization of the Aspire Center led to several funding commitments: $250K from Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois; $10K from Chicago Community Trust; $50K from The Joyce Foundation; $22K through contributions from Austin community stakeholders; $500K from The Pritzker Traubert Foundation; $5.09M from the BMO Harris / United Way of Metro Chicago; $10 million from an IL DCEO grant from a capital bill, sponsored by IL State Representative La Shawn K. Ford.
  • In 2019, The architectural firm Lamar Johnson Collaborative (LJC) began working with ACT in developing the project.

 

Watch ACT Executive Director Darnell Shields share in-depth highlights, progress, and updates about the Aspire Center from the January 2023 Hub 101 virtual info session:

Read more about the ASPIRE Initiative: