When you live in an inner city, the ability to buy routine items for your household can take you a good ways from home.

“In most suburban areas, you have a retail strip center on every corner. In inner-city communities, it’s hard to find them,” said Michael Pierce.

Michael Pierce serves as the executive director of the MLK Avenue Redevelopment Corporation (MLKARC) in Mobile.

Pierce serves as the executive director of the MLK Avenue Redevelopment Corporation (MLKARC), which provides affordable housing, commercial development and educational programs for residents in and around Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue in downtown Mobile. The not-for-profit was founded in 1993.

“Before our organization was formed, there was virtually no new housing taking place in the MLK community,” Pierce said. Over the last two decades, MLKARC has built and sold 130 homes to low- and middle-income residents.

In economic development circles, there’s a saying that “retail follows rooftops,” and Pierce’s group has made that happen, too. In 1999 the organization developed Lincoln Square, a 15,000-square-foot commercial retail center on the east end of the MLK Avenue corridor. It was the first commercial development in the community in over 50 years. In 2013, the group broke ground on another commercial redevelopment project for the community.

In other Alabama cities, too, nonprofits and entrepreneurs are bringing commercial projects to disadvantaged communities. It’s a labor of love for many of them, but it can also make very good business sense.

This dentist’s office recently moved to Woodlawn.

REV Birmingham, a private-public partnership focused on economic development, provides a suite of business-growth services to help new and existing businesses locate in historic urban commercial districts. The neighborhood of Woodlawn is one example.

The junction created by the construction of Interstates 20 and 59 disrupted the fabric of the Woodlawn neighborhood, said Atticus Rominger, REV’s chief public and investor relations officer.

“Over the years it succumbed to familiar patterns of urban neglect,” Rominger said. “Houses stand vacant. Many families who remain in Woodlawn live in poverty. Crime rates are high and graduation rates are low.”

REV’s efforts in Woodlawn have included development of the 55th Place Arts and Social Venture, which has attracted musicians, artists and craftsmen to the area.

“This has generated increased foot-traffic in the commercial district, which leads to a safer, more vibrant feel in the area,” Rominger said.

It also benefits the legacy businesses in the neighborhood, which include two minority-owned hair salons.

“This leads to a diverse business community that is one of the hallmarks of successful revitalization – in which everyone has a chance to succeed,” Rominger added.

A festival last year in Woodlawn in the commercial district.

Space is also being leased to small businesses, non-profits and retail, and the neighborhood now has a location for co-working and for start-up enterprises, as well as meeting facilities for large gatherings.

“Any time we can get a few hundred people to a meeting in Woodlawn, we are opening minds and allowing them to see that high quality is possible in these largely forgotten areas of Birmingham,” Rominger said.

A Catalyst for Growth

Back in Mobile, MLKARC held a grand opening last spring for Renaissance Plaza, a $2.55 million investment in a 13,750-square retail center on Broad Street. The organization owns the center, which provides convenient access to goods and services for residents of the MLK Avenue and downtown Mobile communities. It serves other purposes as well.

“We wanted to stimulate additional investment from the private sector,” Pierce said. “Under-served communities typically don’t have a lot of private-sector development.”

Renaissance Plaza, which rose on the site of the former Broad Street Retail Center, has been a catalyst for two new retail developments.

“We’re bookended by Family Dollar and Dollar Tree,” he said, and these additions are generating more traffic in and around the shopping center.

Renaissance Plaza itself is home to a hair salon and wellness center, a beauty supply store, a dance studio and a tax preparation business. MLKARC is also working with a restaurant and utility provider to secure a couple more tenants. In addition, the organization is marketing a property adjacent to the Dollar Tree store.

“We have 1.7 acres available for sale on a corner lot on a major thoroughfare,” Pierce said. He hopes to have a national chain retailer or restaurant locate there soon.

Renaissance Plaza redevelopment in Mobile

“We’re creating more of a market, but also placing a development where it’s going to have higher visibility, higher traffic and more success,” Pierce said. It also provides jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities.

“While we’re a not-for-profit, we operate as if we are for-profit,” Pierce said.

That means performing due diligence: making sure the location is right before spending money on acquiring property and construction. It also means meeting financial goals; funds for the new development, for example, came from the sale of Lincoln Square.

“We reinvest the proceeds from the sales to buy additional properties to perpetuate the programs,” Pierce explained.

MLKARC programs also include an educational component for neighborhood residents, including prospective homebuyers.

“They’re very unfamiliar with what home ownership means,” Pierce said. “What we’re trying to do is help the person holistically. It’s one thing to sell somebody a home. It’s another to help them be successful.”

MLKARC offers a “Money Smart for Adults” program – free classes where area residents can learn about services offered by financial institutions, how to choose and maintain a checking account, using credit wisely, budgeting, and the importance of saving.

“I see it as our job to expose them to the marketplace — to help them make good, smart decisions about their home, their credit and so forth.” Pierce said. “As you educate them in this process, you hopefully educate the next generation.

“It’s my neighborhood,” Pierce added. “It feels good to be able to do some good in my ‘hood.”

Investing Private Dollars

In Montgomery, an entrepreneur is following his own model for redeveloping an inner city community. Lee Willcoxon was in the real estate business in the early 1990s when he set his sights on owning a shopping center.

Though Willcoxon made offers for years, “All my deals fell through,” he said.

The 60,000-square-foot Faircourt Shopping Center is located in Montgomery.

In 1999 he made the right offer at the right time to acquire the 60,000-square-foot Faircourt Shopping Center at the corner of Fairview Avenue and South Court Street. Since then he has focused on growing and strengthening his properties. He’s currently investing in a nearly $2 million expansion.

The Faircourt center is anchored by a Piggly Wiggly. Including another property Willcoxon purchased across the street, the area also has a gas station, convenience store, restaurant and other retail space.

He also recently bought and tore down a deteriorated apartment complex adjacent to the supermarket.

A dilapidated apartment complex purchased by entrepreneur Lee Willcoxon.

“When there was an opportunity for me to buy the apartments, I jumped on it. That has given me the space to expand the shopping center.”

One of Faircourt’s tenants, CitiTrends, is central to the expansion.

“They did so well they wanted more space. So we’re building them a 13,000-square-foot building,” Willcoxon said. “At the same time I’m remodeling the entire shopping center.” Construction is expected to be completed this spring.

Cititrends, left, is central to Faircourt Shopping Center redevelopment project in Montgomery.

“I feel like my work over here has a lot of significance to the neighborhood,” Willcoxon said. “In addition to just being a good investment for myself, I felt like my effort could make a difference for the community.”

“We love to see when a private investor like a Lee Willcoxon invests his private dollars in that area. It just benefits the whole neighborhood,” said Mac McLeod, Director of Business and Commercial Development for the City of Montgomery.

“Anytime we can get a private development in an underserved area, it can do a number of things,” McLeod said.

Job growth, needed services and access to groceries and other products are among the essentials that residents in the community can now find much closer to home.

–Minnie Lamberth