Crain's Chicago Business - 8/30/21

YOUR VIEW: An infrastructure deal means more than fixing roads. PAGE 10

CHICAGO COMES BACK: Treating ‘struggling’ as an opportunity. PAGE 4

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Nina Hike is a science teacher at George Westinghouse College Prep.

FORUM

ALYCE HENSON

EDUCATION LOSS

Apartment dwellers are bullish on the city

The condo market’s on fire too, Chicago

Year-to-date sales totals are well above 2019, the last normal year. Prices aren’t, and that’s a big factor.

BY ALBY GALLUN After suffering through their worst slump in decades, apartment landlords in downtown Chicago are happy once again.

They can thank people like Jonathan Hui. Hui is among the herd of renters that have stampeded into downtown Chicago this year, fueling a staggeringly swift turnaround of a market that was struggling amid an exodus of tenants just a year ago. The

31-year-old brand manager recently left Minneapolis to take a job with Tyson Foods in the West Loop, signing a lease for a one-bedroom unit at Presidential Towers, the huge apartment complex nearby.

“I’m really excited about it because it’s a nine-minute walk from work,” Hui says.

It’s one story among many explaining why downtown high-rises are full again and rents hit record highs in the second quarter, according to the

LUXURY LIVING CHICAGO REALTY

Downtown’s gone from bust to boom in under a year

Wolf Point East Chicago office of Integra Realty Resources, an appraisal and consulting firm. The number of See APARTMENTS on Page 8

BY DENNIS RODKIN With their children grown and their winters now spent in Arizona, Diane and Jeff Frisch are moving out of the Oak Park home they’ve owned for three decades and into a condo, but they can’t exactly call it downsizing.

When they began shopping for condos in downtown Chicago, the Frisches expected their budget to cover about 2,500 square

feet of space. Instead, they ended up buying a 54th-floor condo that overlooks Millennium Park and has 4,000 square feet, or roughly 400 square feet more than the house where they raised two kids.

“All our friends say, ‘We thought you were downsizing,’ ” said Jeff Frisch, who’s a financial adviser.

Diane Frisch is a semi-retired consultant.

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GREG HINZ

SCIENCE

Assessor Kaegi’s crusade comes with collateral damage.

PAGE 2

Argonne lays the the groundwork for the fastest computer ever.

PAGE 7

See CONDOS on Page 8

2 August 30, 2021 • CRAIN’S CHICAGO BUSINESS

GREG HINZ ON POLITICS

Kaegi’s crusade is causing collateral damage

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CHERRY BEACH PROJECT

I

ried that, however good his intentions, he’s put himself in just that spot.

His response was immediate—and sharp. Tax assessments “don’t matter” in setting rental rates, he said.

“Landlords rent out to what the market will bear.”

There’s probably some truth to that, particularly in higher-end buildings. But I find it really hard to believe that raising taxes doesn’t eventually pressure landlords to raise rents. As one of my old college profs would have put it, there’s some elasticity in almost every financial situation.

Kaegi was equally stern on another matter. I asked him if it might not be better to have gone a little more slowly in implementing decisions that, even if justified, will end up costing certain types of property owners billions of dollars a year more in taxes at a bad time. His reply: No, every dollar not collected from a fat cat instead is squeezed out of a little guy.

“What’s the alternative?” he asked.

One outside expert I spoke with, Taxpayers’ Federation of Illinois President Carol Portman, said Kaegi is right. “Technically, what he’s supposed to do is assess property at the market letting the PEOPLE CAN GET HURT ON THE value,” chips fall where they WARPATH TO THE HOLY GRAIL. may.

However, Portman continued, Kaegi acted complicated than rapacious rather differently in the rich white guys sticking it to middle of the pandemic last poorer, often minority folks. fall when he unilaterally Oh, that surely happens. But declared a “COVID adjustas in all crusades, peoment” that ended up cutting ple get hurt on the warpath assessments on homeownto the holy grail. ers about 10 percent even Like apartment renters. as prices of their homes on Chicago and Cook County the free market were headed have hundreds of thousands way up. “He’s clearly very of them, and they range from aware—when he wants to the very rich to the very poor. be—of the consequences of As I’ve previously reporthis actions,” Portman dryly ed, one of the characterisnotes. tics of the new assessments She has a point. And so Kaegi has proposed in his does he. There’s reform. first two years in office is, Then there’s reform mixed in round terms, to shift the with common sense. Someproperty tax burden from times, it makes sense to ease homeowners to commercial off the bandage. properties. But the class of Kaegi will almost certainly property that has been hit face a big re-election fight the hardest, seen its valunext year. So will some memations and potentially tax bers of the county’s property bills rise the most, is rental tax appeals agency, the apartment buildings—buildBoard of Review, which has ings filled with people who, been busily undoing many um, pay rent. of Kaegi’s assessment hikes Now, running for re-elecon business. All of the above tion on the slogan of “I ought to give them someraised your rent” probably thing to talk about on the is not the best strategy. So I campaign trail. asked Kaegi if he was worn a town in which corruption is endemic largely because no one has the political guts to truly fix it, Fritz Kaegi is absolutely correct in his crusade to reform Cook County’s property tax system.

Our process of raising billions of dollars a year to pay local governments’ bills is staggeringly complex. That complexity makes it prone to abuse, because only an inside expert can really get you what you deserve, don’t you know. That’s why Chicagoans of means have always been inclined to hire tax-appeals lawyers with names like Madigan and Burke. Just to make sure.

Enter Kaegi the reformer— and his approach of tearing the bandage right off the property tax wound.

In a Zoom conference with Crain’s editorial board the other day, the Cook County assessor made clear his view that his job is to figure out what each property is worth on the free market, and set its value accordingly.

Period. “If we’re not basing our figures on the market (price),” he said, “we’re in danger of putting the burden on blue-collar people.”

Yet, in this complex system, things are a little more

Cherry Beach as seen from viewing platform

Michigan’s Harbor Country just gained more beach for public use The Cherry Beach Committee—which includes some big Chicago names—just bought land that includes pristine lakefront beach for more than $4 million

BY ARI BENDERSKY As we enter into the dog days of summer, homeowners and visitors to southwest Michigan’s Harbor Country just got long-awaited good news: They’re about to gain access to 400 more feet of pristine lakefront beach.

After campaigning and fundraising, the Cherry Beach Committee closed on the purchase of land in Chikaming Township, securing 3 acres of undeveloped and pristine dunes, wooded land and 400 feet of lakefront. This now keeps the land from being privately developed and gives the public full access to it.

The Cherry Beach Committee started a grassroots campaign in

2017 to purchase this undeveloped land in Chikaming Township in Berrien County, which includes the towns of Harbert, Lakeside and Sawyer and part of Union Pier. At the time, the township only had 2% of the area’s 7 miles of beachfront accessible to the public; the rest comprises private beaches.

The group sought to buy the land from the Reed Beidler Trust, which owned the property for more than 30 years.

The campaign was led by a group of motivated volunteers including Chicagoan Peggy McTigue, who recently retired from CBRE. Through the group’s work, the movement gained the attention of prominent Chicagoans, including Morningstar founder Joe Mansue-

BE

to, architect Margaret McCurry, interior designer Eva Maddox and AAR CEO John Holmes, who all have homes in the area. An aggressive grassroots fundraising campaign ensued in 2019 and, with the help of donations ranging from $25 to $25,000 from more than 800 people, the group raised $1.65 million, including a $250,000 matching grant from the Carls Foundation. The Michigan Department of Natural Resources Trust Fund contributed the remaining 60 percent of the total $4.125 million purchase price.

The purchase increases the public beach access from 253 feet to 657 feet—a big jump considering how many more people can enjoy the lakefront year-round.

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CRAIN’S CHICAGO BUSINESS • August 30, 2021 3

For the earliest learners, a rescue mission

Frank Cowan partnered with industry heavyweight Planet 13 to win one of 185 new retail pot licenses in Illinois.

Head Start programs are in jeopardy. Will private donors step up?

PAUL GOYETTE

BY ELYSSA CHERNEY

A Vegas weed giant fires up an Illinois joint venture Planet 13’s partnership with a suburban entrepreneur highlights the complications of the state’s social-equity goals I BY JOHN PLETZ FRANK COWAN HIT THE WEED LOTTERY, teaming up with Planet 13, a big industry player, to win one of 185 new retail pot licenses in Illinois.

For the 41-year-old mortgage broker from Westmont, it’s the opportunity of a lifetime, “to learn the industry from seed to sale,” from an industry heavyweight.

“They do it bigger and better than everyone else,” says Cowan, who is scouring the Chicago area for

50,000 to 100,000 square feet of prime retail space for a big-box weed store that would be three to six times larger than anything that’s opened here so far.

His partnership with Planet 13 shows what happens when business imperatives meet Illinois’ lofty goal of using recreational marijuana as a tool to undo decades of damage from the war on drugs See WEED on Page 26

“ILLINOIS DIDN’T WRITE SOCIAL EQUITY INTO THE LAW TO ALLOW (LARGE OUT-OF-STATE COMPANIES) IN.”

As nonprofits across the city grappled with a federal change that greatly reduced or, in some cases, eliminated their funding for early childhood education, the YMCA of Metro Chicago considered a new way to preserve its programs: private dollars.

Like other community-based organizations in this space, the YMCA relies on overlapping streams of government funding to provide free preschool to 350 low-income children, including a $5.5 million annual allocation from the federal Office of Head Start. When that money dried up in a chaotic grant restructuring this summer, the YMCA’s board decided to keep services afloat by digging into an $18 million donation from MacKenzie Scott, who has quickly emerged as one of the nation’s pre-eminent philanthropists in the wake of her multibillion-dollar divorce from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

Tapping donations is a shortterm solution, and not every organization stripped of funding—12 in total—can replicate the strategy. Smaller groups with tight budgets, for example, were forced to downsize classrooms or close day care centers altogether. Yet the scramble in Chicago is forcing organizations to rethink their models for financing early childhood

Jermell Chavis, a Marine veteran from the West Side

See HEAD START on Page 26

10 hot restaurants that opened this summer Opening a restaurant was a complex undertaking this summer, as operators contended with supply shortages, a tight labor market and soaring prices Opening a restaurant has perhaps never been more complicated than it is in the summer of 2021.

It’s not just the continually changing COVID rules and the vaccine mandate conundrum.

There are also sky-high food prices and shortages of, well, almost everything needed to get a restaurant off the ground. As a result, those that have opened in

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Chicago in the past few months have faced a litany of challenges and delays.

The handmade Tunisian lamps Mexican restaurant Chikatana ordered were delayed by weeks, and when they finally arrived, they were the wrong model. Avli on the Park back-ordered forks and other necessary items, all while contending with rising costs on construction materials.

Then there’s the tight labor

market, which is particularly challenging for new restaurants.

Eating and drinking places in Illinois employed 399,400 people in June, down 87,000 from June 2019, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and National Restaurant Association.

Still, some restaurateurs jumped at the opportunity to open earlier this summer, when COVID See RESTAURANTS on Page 21

JOHN R. BOEHM

BY ALLY MAROTTI

Louie Alexakis, managing partner of Avli on the Park

8/27/21 4:32 PM

4 August 30, 2021 • CRAIN’S CHICAGO BUSINESS

CHICAGO COMES BACK

Having the courage to say, ‘I’m struggling’ It’s an opportunity, not a weakness. As we navigate all the challenges coming at us, smart leaders will see a chance to strengthen their relationship with workers.

BY EMILY DRAKE AND TODD CONNOR

A rendering of a proposed apartment tower at 125 W. Maple St.

Fifield withdraws plans for apartments on Near North Side Amid strong opposition from the project’s next-door neighbors, the developer has shelved its proposal for a 39-story apartment tower at 125 W. Maple St.

BY ALBY GALLUN Chicago apartment developer Fifield has shelved its plans for a 39-story high-rise on the Near North Side, a project that drew strong opposition from a group of neighbors who argued it was too big.

Fifield proposed the 303-unit tower at 125 W. Maple St., about a block northwest of the Newberry Library. Though the developer scaled back its plans from 43 stories last summer, that didn’t satisfy residents in a condominium building next door, at 111 W. Maple, who continued to raise concerns about its size and impact on traffic in the neighborhood.

The Chicago Plan Commission was set to consider the revised plan at a meeting Aug. 27, but Fifield decided to withdraw its proposal before the meeting, Ald. Brian Hopkins, 2nd, wrote in an email to constituents.

“Your concerns related to the existing congestion on Maple Street, the current context of predominantly lower-rise structures in the surrounding blocks and overall compatibility of this proposal at this location were carefully considered by both the developer and my office,” wrote Hopkins, who represents the neighborhood.

One other reason residents at 111 W. Maple might have opposed the project: Fifield’s tower would have blocked views from west-facing units. The project also would have included an eight-story community center for the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Cathedral, its

neighbor to the south. The highrise would have risen on the north side of the site.

Fifield hasn’t ruled out another revision to its plans. The developer is considering whether it could move the tower farther south, an idea that seemed acceptable to residents of 111 W. Maple, chairman and CEO Steve Fifield wrote in a text.

“We need to study it to see if feasible,” he wrote.

Fifield needs a zoning change from the city for any big development on the site, a process that includes community meetings and requires the approval of the Plan Commission and the Chicago City Council. Under the City Council’s long-standing custom of aldermanic privilege, aldermen can effectively veto proposed projects in their wards even before the Plan Commission considers them.

Fifield’s decision to withdraw its plans takes the pressure off Hopkins to formally reject its proposal.

In an email to residents of 111 W. Maple, Ken Green, president of the building’s condo board, wrote that he felt “a huge sigh of relief” when he learned that Fifield dropped its plans.

“It’s a horrible design on a footprint that is not suited for a development of that nature,” he wrote.

If approved, the Maple Street project would have been Fifield’s only active apartment development in Chicago. The firm is spending more time these days pursuing opportunities in other markets like Denver, Phoenix and Tampa.

JOE CAHILL

WILL RETURN NEXT WEEK

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EMILY DRAKE: I’ve fielded a number of calls lately from frustrated leaders who are working in organizations they now deem inflexible and conservative, as they witness how they are navigating reopening, returning to office and the delta variant. The sense these leaders share is that their organizational leadership hasn’t learned how to be better as a result of the pandemic, and sometimes they are even experiencing a culture change for the worse.

This week’s New York Times article about Twitter’s culture chaos illustrates a bit about how the “why” of culture change, and change in general, is so important to communicate every step of the way. I sense we’re in this season of fumbling forward, and struggling to focus on all that continues to come at us.

TODD CONNOR: Well, at least fumbling is movement, but I can’t say it’s graceful. Companies are getting it wrong along the way, too, and I think that’s all part of what we get as we grow and take risks in what we do. If you can accept that, then I always like to bring the culture conversation back to a question for leaders: “What do I need?” Cultures are created through a composite of needs.

While everyone has preferences—in other words, how needs get met—organizations can’t deny employee needs, which have a way of getting met in unhealthy ways if they’re not addressed. I’m talking about needs like development and learning; advancement and challenge; community and connection; and autonomy. Even though we all have these needs, it seems like leaders we talk to flag them as weaknesses. Do you agree?

ED: Yes! Normalize having needs!

And elevate workplaces to being an environment that can be part of the puzzle of meeting needs.

Here’s where the social contract with employers is changing, something Hayden Brown, CEO of Upwork, shared in a recent interview talking about the rise of freelancing. Freedom, or autonomy, is an essential need for all of us—Cal Newport writes about this, too—and certainly one that work can either meet or restrict.

Leaders need a certain amount of freedom to be able to handle the work in front of them, in the way

ISTOCK

FIFIELD

Chicago Comes Back is a weekly series on ChicagoBusiness.com providing leadership insights to help your business move forward, written by leadership consultants Emily Drake and Todd Connor.

Drake and Connor facilitate Crain’s Leadership Academy. Drake is a licensed therapist, owner of the Collective Academy and a leadership coach. Connor is the founder of Bunker Labs and the Collective Academy and is also a leadership consultant.

Check out previous installments at ChicagoBusiness.com/comesback.

“REMOTE WORK IS JUST WORK.” IT’S NOT SPECIAL OR UNIQUE OR EVEN ALTOGETHER DIFFERENT THAN WHAT WAS HAPPENING PRE-PANDEMIC, FOR MANY ORGANIZATIONS. they need to handle it. A leader’s job is to take ownership of how they work best, what they’re great at and articulate that to their colleagues. And then great leaders listen and support. Sometimes needs come into conflict, and that’s an opportunity to connect and deepen a relationship. That’s actually where workplace culture emerges, vs. being created.

TC: Interesting take. Last week, as we were closing a leadership session with a global audience, the word “burnout” kept popping up in the chat, something we’ve talked about in this column. But what I found surprising is that not a single person in the Zoom room felt that they could tell their manager that they were struggling. They shared that their leadership saw it as a weakness. I hear you on autonomy, which in this case could mean having the freedom to say “no” to commitments that would infringe on a boundary. But am I getting it right that if someone is burned out, it’s ultimately up to them to “fix” the problem?

ED: Let’s assume you’ve done what you can on your own, as a leader and people manager, and so go-

ing to your own boss is not your first step. I think that’s really important, and taken a step further, I invite leadership to see anyone coming to you with “I’m struggling” as the gift it is. Yes, there are people who will ask for more than what they need, but generally speaking, when someone says, “I need more time on this project,” or “I need more support with this team,” or “I need space away to think through what’s next”— recognize it took a lot to get there, and it’s courageous to do so. Having a need is not criminal.

TC: You mentioned the social contract with employers is changing, and I see this, too. I have a feeling that more leaders are going to have team members doing exactly what you describe: taking control over what they can themselves, and articulating what they need from an empowered perspective. Instead of seeing that as weak, or a challenge, or even offensive, what would it mean to look at having work contribute to helping a leader’s needs be met as a pathway to sustainability? To innovation? To psychological safety and therefore risk and change?

ED: Yes, exactly! I love what Hayden said in her interview, when it comes to the uncertainty around, “Is it OK that people work remotely?” She said, “Remote work is just work.” It’s not special or unique or even altogether different than what was happening pre-pandemic, for many organizations. So, how do we acknowledge this need and support it, not to mention celebrate some of the inclusivity it can create?

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6 August 30, 2021 • CRAIN’S CHICAGO BUSINESS

Edens Corporate Center is BA Investment Advisors’ third suburban office property acquisition in 11 months

BY DANNY ECKER Chicago real estate investors Larry Elbaum and Jeff Bernstein are leaving no doubt about their confidence in the future of suburban office properties coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, purchasing their third in the past 11 months.

A venture of their BA Investment Advisors this month paid close to $23 million for the Edens Corporate Center at 630-650 Dundee Road in Northbrook, according to sources familiar with the agreement.

Elbaum and Bernstein, who are co-founders of brokerage Bradford Allen Realty Services, picked up the property just eight months after they bought another north suburban office building at 570 Lake Cook Road in Deerfield for about $16 million. That deal followed the $44 million they paid in September 2020 for Finley Point, a nine-story office building in west suburban Downers Grove.

It’s a string of purchases they’ve put together amid a public health crisis that so far has diminished demand for suburban offices. BA is one of the biggest local bettors that the tough times for suburban landlords won’t last, and that more companies will gravitate to high-quality office buildings in the suburbs when the pandemic subsides.

Elbaum and Bernstein, who declined to comment, are counting on that bounce-back at the 188,040-square-foot property they’re buying in Northbrook.

The four-story building is just 68% leased, below the 80% average for the north Cook County submarket, according to data from brokerage Jones Lang LaSalle.

If the demand is going to come back after 17 months of a pandemic that has accelerated a millennial migration to the suburbs, it hasn’t shown up in the numbers yet. Net absorption, which measures the change in leased and occupied space compared with the

previous period, fell by 470,000 square feet during the second quarter, the second-worst quarter of demand since 2017, according to JLL. Those move-outs outpacing move-ins drove up the suburban office vacancy rate midway through the year to a record high 26.1%, JLL data shows.

But BA has also notched some leasing victories of late at its other suburban properties, giving it reason to believe it can do the same in Northbrook. At 570 Lake Cook Road, BA recently signed a series of small lease renewals and expansions, including a deal to keep software company Vail Systems in its 16,477-square-foot office.

RENOVATIONS

Edens Corporate Center has also been substantially renovated in recent years by the seller, a venture of Newport Beach, Calif.-based KBS Realty Advisors. KBS, which paid just more than $30 million for the property in 2016, spent an additional $4 million-plus updating the building’s corridors and elevators and adding a bike room, among other renovations.

The value of the building has

COSTAR GROUP

Chicago firm purchases Northbrook office building Edens Corporate Center dropped off in part because a series of small tenants have moved out or downsized since KBS’ purchase, leaving the property with less in-place cash flow and making it a bigger gamble that a buyer could lease up the empty space.

The building has roughly 3½ years of weighted average lease term—a measure of tenants’ remaining lease commitments to the property—with marketing agency Blue Chip Marketing as its largest tenant, according to a JLL flyer.

The capital markets team in JLL’s Chicago office is selling the property on behalf of KBS. A KBS spokesperson couldn’t be reached.

Another challenge for BA at Edens Corporate Center is that it competes with office buildings just north of it in Lake County, where landlords may have a

growing property tax advantage— something BA may itself look to exploit at its 570 Lake Cook Road property.

Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi’s approach to valuing properties has shifted more of the county’s property tax burden on commercial landlords rather than homeowners. Since office landlords typically pass along those tax costs to tenants, Lake County office buildings can undercut their Cook County counterparts.

Taxes on commercial buildings in north suburban Cook County rose an average of nearly 16% after Kaegi reassessed such properties in 2019, according to Cook County treasurer data. Tax bills due this year (based on 2020 assessments) for commercial properties in the same area rose 5.2%.

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8/27/21 9:48 AM

CRAIN’S CHICAGO BUSINESS • August 30, 2021 7

Argonne lays the groundwork for the fastest computer ever The national lab in Lemont is about to install a system that will help the United States in the worldwide race to build an exascale machine

BY JOHN PLETZ Argonne National Laboratory in Lemont is taking a big step toward its goal of becoming the first place in the world to build a superfast computer.

It’s about to install a test system that will be used to figure out how to write code in a way that will best use the new $500 million machine, called Aurora, that will be capable of doing 1 billion-billion calculations per second, or twice as fast as the top supercomputers out there today.

vantage of exascale computing.

Installation of Polaris is scheduled to begin this month and will go into use early next year. The Aurora machine, which will be the size of 10 tennis courts and contain more than 100,000 processors, is expected to go online later in 2022.

SPEED DEMON

The capability of an exascale computer is mind-boggling. Aurora will be nearly twice as fast as the top supercomputer, Fugaku, at Japan’s Riken Center. It will be nearly 100 times than the most AURORA WILL BE CAPABLE OF DOING faster powerful supercomcurrently at Ar1 BILLION-BILLION CALCULATIONS PER puter gonne.

SECOND, OR TWICE AS FAST AS THE TOP The United States is racing to build an SUPERCOMPUTERS OUT THERE TODAY. exascale machine ahead of China, JaHewlett Packard Enterprise, pan, South Korea and the Eurowhich is partnering with Intel to pean Union.

Exascale is the next big jump in build Aurora, is constructing the new testbed computer, dubbed supercomputing, leapfrogging by Polaris. The Polaris system, 1,000 times the petascale comwhich involves 280 HP servers, puters that emerged in the late will be used by researchers and 2000s. The increase in computdevelopers to create software ing power will give researchers a and algorithms that can take ad- better tool to tackle big challeng-

es, such as modeling cancer cells or understanding dark matter, by allowing more data and more variables at once.

Supercomputers, such as those housed at Argonne and other national labs, have been used for decades by researchers to model complex phenomenon, such as weather patterns, human disease and origins of the universe.

With each advance in computing power, those models become more accurate and can be accomplished more quickly.

But changes in computing power also require researchers to rethink how they write software used to create those models.

“Increasingly, the computational power and scale required to process artificial intelligence and machine learning data sets can only be delivered through high-performance computing systems,” Justin Hotard, a senior vice president at HPE, said in a statement.

A rendering of Polaris, the new testbed computer for the $500 million Aurora machine.

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Crain’s promotes Garcia to digital editor role

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Rob Garcia, a copy editor at Crain’s Chicago Business since March, has been promoted to deputy digital editor for audience and social media, effective this month.

Garcia, 30, came to Crain’s from the Toledo Blade, where he was a digital editor. Before that, he was an editor and page designer at GateHouse Media.

Since joining Crain’s, Garcia has worked closely with copy chief Scott Williams as well as members of the digital editing and design teams.

In his new role, he will be responsible for editing stories for Crain’s award-winning website, ­ChicagoBusiness.com, while also working with the company’s audience team to expand the publication’s reach and turn more readers into subscribers.

A native of Chicago’s ­Beverly neighborhood, Garcia earned a bachelor of science degree in news and editorial journalism from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Like Crain’s Editor Ann Dwyer, senior reporter John Pletz, digital design editor Jason McGregor and Health Pulse reporter Jon

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“It’s been just a few short months since Rob joined us, and he’s already shown a great capacity for collaboration, creativity and curiosity,” Dwyer said. “We’re looking forward to seeing him take on this new responsibility. The goal is to serve our existing audience even better than we are now while also capturing new readers with our topflight coverage of Chicago’s corporate, civic and cultural scene. We think Rob is up to the challenge.”

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8/27/21 12:30 PM

Downtown condos come roaring back CONDOS from Page 1 In mid-July, the couple bought the condominium for about $1.9 million, which is about 9% off what the sellers paid for the unit in 2005.

Their purchase was part of a surge in downtown condo buying that, even though we saw it coming in June when the city began reopening and people rediscovered the many pleasures of downtown’s lakefront, restaurants and cultural venues, has turned out bigger than anyone expected.

In the first seven months of 2021, 654 condos and townhouses sold in the Loop, according to data released in mid-August by the Chicago Association of Realtors, Midwest Real Estate Data and Showing Time. That’s an increase of 51% over the number of attached homes— condos and townhouses—sold in the same period in 2019, the last normal year.

Adding the Near North, West and South sides to the Loop, there were 3,997 condo and townhouse sales in the first seven months of 2021, eclipsing by about 1% the 3,965 sales in the same stretch of 2019.

The comparison to 2019 tells it loud and clear: Downtown condo sales are back.

The data is reported for Chicago’s 77 official community areas, which don’t always conform to commonly understood neighborhood boundaries. The Near West Side, for example, extends farther west than the West Loop, and the Loop includes

Lakeshore East. One new high-rise in Lakeshore East, the 95-story St. Regis, has closed 121 sales since Jan. 1, according to Crain’s research in real estate sales records. Even eliminating all those transactions, the Loop would be up 100 sales, or 23%, from the 2019 figure.

It goes without saying that the 2021 figures are far larger increases over 2020, the year when COVID shutdowns and social unrest led to big drops in downtown condo sales.

While sales are rising, prices aren’t, as the Frisches learned, and that’s a big part of what’s fueling the sales surge.

“Prices are not back to pre-pandemic levels,” said Nancy McAdam, the Jameson Sotheby’s International Realty agent who represented the sellers of the condo the Frisches bought. “That’s what’s bringing the buyers in; they’re still getting these good prices.”

In the Loop and all the neighborhoods that necklace it, buyers and real estate agents told Crain’s the market has been vibrant.

“The energy is back,” said Ben Lissner, a Compass agent who focuses on downtown high-rises.

In 2020, buyers shying away from downtown condos created an unprecedented oversupply of inventory, which initially caught the attention of “opportunistic buyers coming in and saying, ‘Let’s see how low we can go,’ ” Lissner said.

The deals they got drove demand by more buyers, he said.

Kara Keene said she found downtown condo prices “super tempting” when she compared what she could afford in River North with what she was seeing in other neighborhoods and suburbs.

A 23-year-old recent graduate moving up to the city from Manteno, Keene said she was frustrat-

ed watching properties selling for more than the asking price in other areas, “but smack dab in the middle of the city I got mine for under the asking price.”

In June, Keene paid $312,500 for a one-bedroom condo, down from the $325,000 asking price. She made it even more affordable by enrolling in the Illinois Housing Development Authority’s SmartBuy program, which pays off student loans for young adults who purchase homes.

While total condo sales downtown are up beyond 2019 levels, the Near North community area stands out as the only one of the four where condo and townhouse sales have not caught up with 2019.

With 1,776 sales through the end of July, the Near North is 25% behind 2019’s sales tally.

“It’s primarily because of crime,” said Jim Kinney, a Baird & Warner agent who’s been selling homes in the Near North neighborhoods since the 1990s.

“Every day you read in the paper that there was something in the core area around Michigan Avenue,” Kinney said. “Carjacking, smash-andgrab.” In one brazen recent incident, on Aug. 21, a group of four to seven people rushed into a store near Michigan and Ohio, grabbed about $43,000 worth of merchandise, and ran out to a vehicle that was waiting for them, according to police. In the process, the group shoved a security guard to the ground. He was hospitalized with a fractured skull and bleeding in his brain.

Because of a long string of similar incidents, Kinney said, many potential buyers “look at other places to be.”

Others buy, well aware of the area’s recent plague of crime and violence. Rob and Amanda Miller,

TODD WINTERS

8 AUGUST 30, 2021 • CRAIN’S CHICAGO BUSINESS

Diane and Jeff Frisch

CONDO COMEBACK After a devastating 2020, all but the Near North area have come roaring back, with more sales in the first seven months of 2021 than the same period in 2019, the last normal year.

CONDO SALES

January to July 2019

January to July 2020

January to July 2021

4,000 2,389

2,294

3,000 2,000

1,776

1,000 0

1,110

Loop

Near North

978 Near West

Near South

Total downtown

Note: These community area designations are from the official list of Chicago’s 77 and may not conform to exact neighborhood boundaries. Near West, for example, extends farther west than the West Loop neighborhood.

Sources: Chicago Association of Realtors, Midwest Real Estate Data, ShowingTime

who are selling the Prairie Style mansion they rehabbed in Hinsdale, will buy something smaller there and wanted an in-town condo as well. They paid $1.3 million for a two-bedroom Astor Street condo in early August.

“We wanted proximity to entertainment, shopping, the lakefront path, our kids,” who are both adults

living in Chicago, Rob Miller said.

He was not ignorant of the recent spate of carjackings, bump-andrun collisions and other incidents.

“Certainly plenty of people talk about it in the suburbs,” Miller said.

“But whenever you’re in a city, there’s crime. We walk everywhere and we’re comfortable. We’re not hiding out.”

Apartment market downtown has gone from bust to boom in less than a year APARTMENTS from Page 1 downtown apartments leased in the first half of 2021 already far exceeds the leasing volume for a good year.

Amid the coronavirus pandemic, which closed downtown offices, restaurants and bars, and the looting and violence of last summer, many renters left downtown and fewer moved in. Undeniably, the flow has reversed this year. Why? That’s not as clear.

“Everybody’s asking that question: Where did all these people come from?” says Integra Senior Managing Director Ron DeVries.

Two theories: One, many young professionals who left the city and moved in with their parents during the early months of the pandemic have moved downtown.

Two, many out-of-towners who took jobs based in downtown Chicago last year worked remotely for a while, putting off their moving plans. Leasing picked up when they finally decided to rent an apartment this year, expecting their offices to reopen as the pandemic eased.

Leasing data from Luxury Living Chicago Realty, a Chicago-based apartment leasing firm, lends some credence to both theories. Relocations—tenants moving into Chicago from another state or the suburbs—typically account for about

P008_CCB_20210830.indd 8

40% of all leases handled by Luxury Living, says Aaron Galvin, the firm’s co-founder and CEO. Luxury Living oversees leasing for about 3,000 apartments, mostly downtown, including Wolf Point East, a new 60-story tower along the Chicago River.

Surprisingly, that percentage didn’t fall last year. Instead, the firm saw an increase in the volume of renters who moved out of its buildings and left the state, Galvin says.

The downtown market’s turnaround began late last year, when landlords started dangling concessions—two months or more rent-free—to attract tenants and fill up their buildings. Many of those 20-somethings who had moved back in with their parents took the bait and moved downtown.

“They were able to take advantage of those early COVID-related deals,” Galvin said.

So were some transplants.

Brooke Miller moved from South Florida to Chicago in March after signing a lease at Spoke, an apartment building in River West, that included two months rent-free along with two months of free parking. A flight attendant, Miller didn’t have to move here for her job, but she grew up in Indiana and wanted to live in a big city that was close to her family.

“I came into the market at a great time,” she says.

That’s also about when Galvin started to notice a shift in the market—a pickup in leases with out-ofstate renters. So far this year, relocations have accounted for about half of Luxury Living’s leases—up from 40% in prior years—with people from outside Illinois representing 35% and suburban relocations representing 15%, he says. Last year, renters moving into the city from the Chicago suburbs accounted for about 25% of the total.

Downtown living lost its appeal last year as many downtown professionals worked remotely—and no longer needed to be close to their office. Today, being close to the office may be appealing to some renters because it means they don’t have to get on a crowded bus or train for their commute, potentially exposing themselves to the virus.

“A lot of them are saying, ‘I want to be within walking distance to work.

That’s important to me now,’ ” says Ericka Rios, co-founder and director of leasing at Downtown Apartment Co., a Chicago brokerage.

Still, some tenants will never come back. With health and safety restrictions increasing the hassle of city living, many millennials starting families decided to leave their apartments in the city last year and buy a house in the suburbs. They

would have taken the step eventually but just moved up their plans due to the pandemic.

“There is a population that’s gone for good,” Galvin says.

It’s hard to know with certainty why downtown landlords lost so many tenants in 2020 and gained so many this year. Many explanations that make sense intuitively today may not hold up as more data becomes available and as academics and researchers take a closer look at migration patterns.

But it’s clear that landlords have regained the upper hand over tenants after losing it briefly last year. After dropping to 86.5% in fourth-quarter 2020—its lowest level since at least 1998—the downtown apartment occupancy rate bounced back to 94.5% in the second quarter, according to Integra.

What about all those deals?

They’re a lot harder to find. Including concessions like free rent, net rents at the most-expensive Class A downtown buildings rose to $3.41 per square foot in the second quarter, eclipsing their all-time high of $3.31 two years earlier.

“It is definitely not a renter’s market right now,” Miller says.

The rebound came just in time for Jim Letchinger. The Chicago developer is wrapping up construction of One Chicago, a two-tower, $850 million residential project in River

North that includes 735 apartments and 77 condominiums. It was a huge bet on the market that looked shaky at the beginning of the year.

Not anymore. Based on current leasing volumes, Letchinger expects that more than 100 apartments will be leased by Oct. 1, when the first residents start moving in.

One Chicago rents so far average about $4.20 per square foot, among the highest in the city, he says.

“I am pleasantly surprised,” says Letchinger, founder and CEO of JDL Development.

Landlords can breathe a sigh of relief, but the pandemic isn’t over.

With vaccinations rising and cases falling in the spring and summer, many companies were preparing to open their downtown offices around Labor Day. But some have postponed those plans amid the rise of the delta variant, removing the urgency for their employees to rent a downtown apartment.

Letchinger is concerned about the potential impact on the market, but only to a point. Even though COVID-19 cases are on the rise— and the state and city are taking measures to contain them—downtown Chicago is a lot more vibrant than it was last year.

“As long as the bars and restaurants and social activities remain open, people will want to be here,” Letchinger says.

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10 August 30, 2021 • CRAIN’S CHICAGO BUSINESS

EDITORIAL

People still believe in Chicago. Here’s proof. downsize out of the homes where they once raised their families.

In most cases, these new downtown renters and condo-dwellers seem to be taking the nerve-rattling headlines about city crime in stride. As one buyer who’s traded his Hinsdale mansion for an Astor Street condo put it to Rodkin: “Whenever you’re in a city, there’s crime. We walk everywhere and we’re comfortable. We’re not hiding out.”

The One Chicago development is under construction in the River North neighborhood.

DEMAND FOR CONDOS AND APARTMENTS IN THE CENTRAL CORE OF THE CITY HAS GONE FROM BUST TO BOOM.

JDL DEVELOPMENT

R

enters are stampeding back into downtown Chicago. So, too, are condo buyers. Meanwhile, newly released census figures show Chicago neighborhoods—downtown and beyond—have gained residents in the past decade, rising 2% to 2.7 million residents.

Wait, wasn’t this supposed to be the city people are abandoning in droves?

It certainly was starting to look that way a year ago, when high-rise apartment buildings downtown emptied out as COVID swept into the city and as fear of crime and contagion put a damper on the condo market as well.

What a difference a year makes.

As two key members of Crain’s real estate reporting team—Alby Gallun and Dennis Rodkin—tell it in this week’s issue, demand for condos and apartments in the central core of the city has gone from bust to boom, and remarkably swiftly.

In the first seven months of 2021, 654 condos and townhouses sold in the Loop, Rodkin reports. That’s an increase of 51% over the number of attached homes— condos and townhouses—sold in the same period in 2019, the last normal year of sales prior to the pandemic. Condo prices, however, have lagged the growth in sales, and that’s a key factor fueling the market surge.

That’s not the case on the rental side of the ledger. Rents for the most-expensive Class A downtown buildings are at a record high. Even so, downtown landlords so far this year have already leased a staggering number of apartments. Absorp-

tion, or the change in the number of occupied apartments downtown, exceeded 3,300 units in the second quarter, Gallun reports. That’s roughly how many downtown apartments are typically absorbed in an entire year. And Gallun’s sources predict downtown absorption for the year will total 6,500 units, the highest annual figure going back to at least 1999.

So what’s going on here? Crain’s re-

porting reveals a combination of factors: Young professionals who returned home to live with their parents during the worst of the quarantine era are ready to move back downtown again. Others, anticipating that their employers will want them back in the office eventually, are positioning themselves to be within walking distance. Still others are empty-nester boomers and near-boomers looking to

Group

That’s a welcome message for a city living under some clouds that have seemed to lack a silver lining of late.

Of course, the risk factors that could endanger this rebound are never far from any Chicagoan’s mind: fear of violent crime, tensions exacerbated by poverty and racial inequity, COVID-fueled uncertainties, and the city and state pension messes, to name a few.

And yet, it’s reassuring to know that thousands of people, by renting and buying in and around the Loop, are reaffirming with their pocketbooks what Chicagoans know deep down and sometimes forget: Chicago is, in many ways, a great place to live and work. And it will continue to be.

A

Assist

A

S

YOUR VIEW

An infrastructure deal means more than fixing roads

F

ollowing months of negotiations, the Senate this month finally passed a long overdue, sweeping infrastructure bill to authorize more than $568 billion in new infrastructure spending, moving President Joe Biden’s plan closer to the finish line. Dubbed the “largest federal investment in public transit ever,” the bipartisan deal represents historic funding for America’s infrastructure, but one aspect of the plan has been left out of many recent headlines: It will help deliver safer wastewater infrastructure and cleaner drinking water to millions of families.

UP TO 10 MILLION AMERICAN HOUSEHOLDS AND 400,000 SCHOOLS AND CHILD CARE CENTERS LACK SAFE DRINKING WATER. A core component of this bipartisan infrastructure bill is the Drinking Water & Wastewater Infrastructure Act of 2021, Sen. Tammy Duckworth’s bipartisan legislation to help rebuild our nation’s crumbling and dangerous water infrastructure.

Investing in water infrastructure is one of the most important actions any level of government can take. It not only protects our drinking water, but is also one of the first steps toward guaranteeing real equity among

communities of color that have been neglected for decades. Thanks to Lake Michigan and the Great Lakes, the Chicago area has abundant sources of clean drinking water. Our communities rely on a vast network of underground pipes that constitute our water infrastructure to transport the water we need to our homes and businesses.

However, far too many of these pipes were laid decades, if not a century, ago. It’s been well reported that thousands of homes contain old, polluting lead water lines or lines that are broken and need repair or replacement. Illinois has the misfortune of containing more known lead service lines than any other state in our country. And the years of failure to make adequate investments in our water infrastructure led us to a status quo where thousands of Illinoisans are served their drinking water through what is essentially a lead straw.

Beyond that, the pollution from outdated pipes and surrounding environmental contaminants is seeping into our drinking water. These faulty pipes also leak untold gallons of water, costing millions of dollars—and more than tripling Illinois’s cost for water service in the past decade.

Additionally, up to 10 million American households and 400,000 schools and child care centers lack safe drinking water, potentially causing irreparable harm to our children’s cognitive development and other long‐

C

Kimberly du Buclet is a Metropolitan Water Reclamation District commissioner.

U.S. Rep. Marie Newman represents Illinois’ 3rd Congressional District.

U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth is Illinois’ junior senator.

Peo

term health side effects. Making matters worse is the fact that while in 1977 the federal government contributed more than 60 cents for every dollar spent on water infrastructure, that number dropped to less than 10 cents per dollar by 2014, even while other federal investments in physical infrastructure remained largely the same.

And our state’s water crisis unfortunately goes beyond our pipes. Just in the past year, countless homes, apartment complexes and parked cars along Chicago’s east coast were battered by the record‐high rising water in Lake Michigan. As the New York Times documented, “the speed and uncertainty of the changes underscore

S

ple

Write us: Crain’s welcomes responses from readers. Letters should be as brief as possible and may be edited. Send letters to Crain’s Chicago Business, 150 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL 60601, or email us at letters@chicagobusiness.com. Please include your full name, the city from which you’re writing and a phone number for fact-checking purposes.

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8/27/21 3:38 PM

CRAIN’S CHICAGO BUSINESS • August 30, 2021 11

YOUR VIEW Continued how Chicago, in some crucial ways, is perhaps more immediately exposed to the dangers of global warming than cities on the ocean.”

This is a public health, financial and infrastructural crisis—and it isn’t Chicago’s alone. Earlier this year, a survey of 241 municipalities, from large cities to villages, located on the Great Lakes showed they could collectively face nearly $2 billion in damage from climate change by 2025.

These rising costs also disproportionately impact impoverished Black and Brown communities, which suffer from the most water shutoffs, as well as poorer water quality compared with other communities.

For too long the federal government has ignored the severity of the water quality problem that our states, cities and municipalities face. Until now.

Under the bipartisan infrastructure deal reached recently that includes Sen. Duckworth’s bipartisan water

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infrastructure proposal, Congress would invest a total of approximately $55 billion over five years to fix and upgrade drinking water and wastewater infrastructure projects in Illinois and across the country. This includes injecting $43.4 billion into the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund and the Clean Water State Revolving Fund, while providing an additional $15 billion for lead service line replacement, with a priority on projects in low‐ income communities and communities of color; and an extra $10 billion to clean up emerging contaminants, which includes but is not limited to PFAS chemicals.

This bill also invests an additional $50 billion to address the effects of climate change‐related weather events.

Simply put, if signed into law, the bipartisan deal will constitute the largest single federal investment in upgrading our water infrastructure and strengthening the resilience of physical and natural systems in American history.

President Biden understands that an investment in water infrastructure is an investment in our economic recovery. Through this plan, we can not only remove harmful lead lines, eliminate polluting leaks and address our aging water infrastructure, but also create good‐paying union jobs and a greener economy.

The Senate passing the Infrastructure Investment & Jobs Act is just the first step toward this critical bill becoming law, and it is a strong start to answering a decades‐old crisis. Our nation does not have the luxury of continuing to ignore our failing water infrastructure and the long‐term equity, health and economic impacts it poses.

Every level of government has a fundamental obligation to ensure clean drinking water and safe infrastructure for the communities they serve. Our nation can begin living up to that promise by passing this legislation into law.

Chief executive officer KC Crain

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8/27/21 3:39 PM

PEOPLE ON THE MOVE

Advertising Section To place your listing, visit www.chicagobusiness.com/peoplemoves or, for more information, contact Debora Stein at 917.226.5470 / dstein@crain.com

ACCOUNTING

BANKING

LAW

REAL ESTATE

REAL ESTATE

BDO USA, LLP, Chicago

First Bank of Highland Park, Northbrook

Taft Law, Chicago

33 Realty, Chicago

Taft is pleased to announce Stephanie P. Addison has joined the firm as an associate attorney in the Litigation practice. Stephanie has represented a broad range of clients in state and federal courts in complex commercial litigation matters, including breach of contract disputes, employment discrimination claims, and consumer class defense.

33 Realty is pleased to announce George Kokkonas, Broker and Austin Bol, Junior Broker have joined the Investment Brokerage team. Kokkonas will Kokkonas focus on buy side representation and acquisitions in the Chicago MSA. He recently brokered a 54M 400-unit apartment complex in Wheeling and has closed over 150M in career transactions.

Bol has had a successful Bol career as a property inspector and brings a unique skill set and perspective to multifamily investment brokerage. He plans to leverage his expertise while focusing on the company’s expansion into Indiana. With business lines in property management, apartment leasing, investment brokerage, construction, and distressed assets, 33 Realty offers solutions for owners of investment real estate.

Entre Commercial Realty LLC, Arlington Heights

BDO USA, LLP, one of the nation’s leading accounting and advisory firms, has named Dale Jordan a Partner and Tax Marketplace Leader in the firm’s Chicago office. Dale has over 15 years of big four experience, during which time he held multiple national roles within U.S. Tax Solutions and International Tax. Throughout his career, Dale has consistently delivered impactful results serving a variety of clients including individuals, partnerships, and privately held and publicly traded corporations.

As one of the five largest privately held banks in Chicago, First Bank of Highland Park is proud to announce Kerry Duellman, CRCM, CAMS, has been promoted to Vice President, Sr. Compliance/CRA Officer. As the bank continues to grow, Kerry and her team are responsible for developing and maintaining a bank-wide compliance program including risk assessments, monitoring guidelines, reporting protocols and policies and procedures. She joined First Bank in 2018 and has 25+ years of banking experience.

ARCHITECTURE

BANKING / FINANCE

Wight & Company, Chicago

PNC Financial Services Group, Inc., Chicago

Stuart Brodsky joins Wight & Company as a PK-12 education practice principal. A recognized expert with over 35 years of experience in the design of education facilities, he will play a vital role in the growth of our education market. He studies the evolving fields of social and neuroscience applying evidence-based principles to design for neurodiversity, equity, and inclusion. He leads clients in designing environments that foster intrinsic motivation shaping a resilient future for students.

Christine L. Cottle was promoted to senior vice president and territory sales director for PNC Retail Banking. Based in Chicago, she will support sales and service teams for PNC’s consumer and small business clients in the Midwest region. Cottle brings over 25 years of experience to her new role, including retail, consumer lending, business banking and credit analysis. Most recently, she served as sales and client experience manager for PNC Retail Banking in Chicagoland and Wisconsin.

LAW Taft Law, Chicago Taft welcomes associate attorney Nicholas P. Brankle to the firm’s Intellectual Property practice. Nick counsels clients on a wide range of IP, emerging technology, and data-related products and services. He has extensive experience working with clients to develop and implement privacy and data security programs to ensure compliance with regulations, litigation trends, and laws including the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and E.U. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

COMPANIES ON THE MOVE

Byline Bank, a subsidiary of Byline Bancorp, Inc. (NYSE:BY), welcomes Angela Hart, J.D., CFP® as Executive Vice President – Head of Wealth Management and Trust. Hart previously held leadership roles in the wealth management and trust groups at Northern Trust and First Midwest Bank. She will be responsible for ensuring the delivery of top tier investment and trust services to high net worth businesses and individuals.

Hart received her Juris Doctor with Distinction from the University of Iowa.

BANKING Byline Bank, Chicago

PAY INCREASE TO DRIVERS

Improving Chicago, IL 312-491-3000 www.improving.com

Mark-It Express Lemont, IL 708-970-2840 www.mark-itexpress.com

Improving, a modern digital services company, has acquired Tahoe Partners, a professional services firm specializing in Cloud and Microsoft digital transformation services, headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.

The transaction is expected to increase Improving’s annualized revenue significantly, resulting in a collective annualized revenue exceeding $185 million, and will further expand its geographic reach within the Midwest region of the United States.

Mark-It Express, an intermodal trucking and freight brokerage company, with headquarters in Lemont, IL, announced that effective 8-2-21, all Illinois company drivers receive a well-deserved pay increase. Company drivers are being rewarded for their outstanding performance and customer satisfaction during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The pay schedule for company drivers in Illinois, in addition to their benefits package of Insurance and 401k w/match, will be $27/hour for drivers without Hazardous Materials endorsement; $30/hour for drivers with Hazardous Materials endorsement.

“Our drivers in Detroit and Kansas City will also see pay increases,” said Tony Apa, president.

PNC Financial Services Group, Inc., Chicago Matthew Toles has been promoted to senior vice president, sales and client experience manager for PNC Retail Banking in Greater Chicago and Wisconsin.

Toles will lead a team of regional sales, service, and support managers responsible for developing and executing PNC’s strategy to deliver comprehensive financial solutions to new and existing clients. He brings almost 24 years of financial services experience including retail and business banking to his new role.

DESIGN / CONSTRUCTION

LAW Taft Law, Chicago Bianca E. Ciarroni has joined Taft as an associate attorney in the firm’s Litigation practice group.

Prior to joining Taft, she represented creditors’ committees in Chapter 11 bankruptcy cases and creditors in post-judgment proceedings seeking to collect on their multi-million dollar judgments in Illinois state court.

Bianca is active in the Turnaround Management Association’s (TMA) Chicago/Midwest Chapter, Network of Women (NOW) Committee and is in her second year as TMA NOW co-chair.

Unispace, Chicago

CHICAGOBUSINESS.COM I DECEMBER 7, 2020 I

THE TAKEAWAY

Suzanne Yoon Yoon, 45, is founder and managing partner of Chicago private-equity firm Kinzie Capital Partners, which invests in lower midmarket consumer, manufacturing and services companies. Her parents brought her to the U.S. from South Korea when she was a baby. She was raised in the Chicago area. Today, she lives in Ukrainian Village with her husband and three sons.

What’s your favorite sport?

Today, it would be golf. Previously, I would do anything that had me running around. I just enjoy games generally.

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As a spectator?

It’s a tie between pro football and my boys’ baseball games. I’m an unfortunate lifelong Bears fan.

You also fish?

I fish a lot because becau causee my my husb husba hu band is a die-hard die-hard hard d fisherman. fis fisherma fi herm herman an. So it’s partly just going going along for husband the he ride, ride r de but b t I do d enjoy eenjo n it. it.

PROMOTE.

What’s your best catch catch? atch? h?

My largest fish was a 60-pound 60-po ound sail sail-fish caught in the Florida Keys, KKeeys, eys, aand the he hardest catch was a 660-pound 6000-pound tuna from the he Gulf side of Mexico.

Mexico. xico.

>

Why not?

What’s What’ W hatt’’s one ha one of your y favorite things about about K ore o rea ean an culture culture? ltu Korean I still illl love love ve Korean oreean food. The focus on education orean du ation a o aand and ffamily amilyy values. valu va lues lu ues es. s My M mother h was definitely de d fi i l a ““Tiger Tiger M om m.” TThere here was a lot of discipline in the house.

Mom.”

>

Reprinted with permission from Crain’s Chicago Business. © 2021 Crain Communications Inc. All rights reserved.

Further duplication without permission is prohibited. Visit www.chicagobusiness.com/section/reprints. #CB21042

>

>

Reprinted with permission from Crain’s Chicago Business. © 2021 Crain Communications Inc. All rights reserved.

Further duplication without permission is prohibited. Visit www.chicagobusiness.com/section/reprints. #CB21042

What makes you tick?

I come from an immigrant family and was raised by a single mother after my father passed away in an armed robbery when I was 10. I’ve never taken a single thing for granted in my life.

What’s your call on working remotely in the COVID-19 era?

We started to go back into the (downtown) office in October—we took a vote, and it was unanimous everyone wanted to be back in.

When you have an afternoon to yourself, how do you spend it?

Sometimes I clean. I like to keep my life simple—I like to simplify; I’m a purger. For relaxation, I’m into mediation, yoga and working out.

What did your mother otherr d do o for fo a living? would shifts director She was a nurse who ho wou woul ld sometimes ometim work work two tw wo shif fts ts a day. Today, she’s direct or off homee business. nursing for a nursing g hom business.

>

#25 Overall #18 Small Businesses #25 Overall #18 Small Businesses #25 Overall #18 Smallll Businesse Businesses es

>

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remotely in tough times: cash for office equipment and child care, additional PTO to deal More than a year into pandemic, mostt officewith workers are still d do doing o oing ing ngg theirr thing th t g ffro from rom om with COVID challenges.

Once again thisthe year, Crain’s partnered Best are Companies lunches, tablea tennis aand ngets nd dh happy appy ppy py hou hours mo m moot home, making perks Group to survey employees and office identify the like 100 catered Best Places to Work, list that p with ways to suppor rt the rt ttheir heeir troops h t ops p wo w orrk orkin orking o rrkin kkiiin n ngg But the best companies came up support working more competitivepoints. each year. uipment and child care,, additional add dit di iti tionall PTO tional PT TO to TO to dea d al remotely in tough times: cash for office equipment deal dw itth Best B Comp Co om mpanies p with COVID challenges. Once again this year, Crain’s partnered with Companies o Wor W Wo ork, a list tthat hatt ggets hat Group to survey employees and identifyy the 100 Best Places to Work, more competitive each year.

You’re one of the few women leading a private-equity firm anywhere in the U.S. Is that a lonely role?

I don’t think it is, because I have such a good network of other women. It’s not like it was five years ago, or 10 years ago.

>

More than a year into the pandemic, most office workers are still doing their thing from home, making office perks like catered lunches, table tennis and happy hours moot points. But the best companies came up with ways to support their troops working remotely in tough times: cash for office equipment and child care, additional PTO to deal with COVID challenges.

Once again this Crain’s most partnered Bestare Companies More than a year into theyear, pandemic, officewith workers still doing their thing from Group to survey home, employees andoffice identify thelike 100catered Best Places to Work, list that gets making perks lunches, table atennis and happy hours moot more competitivepoints. each year.

But the best companies came up with ways to support their troops working

>

Unispace, a global leader in workspace strategy, design, and construction, has appointed Yong In as their new Senior Associate, Design - Creative Lead in their Chicago office.

With 20+ years of experience in interior design, architecture, and design strategy, she’s passionate about creating memorable spaces through spatial storytelling. At Unispace, she will design workplaces that inspire and enrich human experience and transform how people feel and behave.

Reprinted with permission from Crain’s Chicago Business. ness. © 2021 Crain Communications on ns Inc. ns IInc nc. n All A All rights ghts hts reserved. reser res reserved erv rv www.chicagobusiness.com/ m/ m/sec m /sect c on/reprints. ction/reprints. n/reprints. reprints. eprints. s. #CB21042 #CB2 #CB21 #CB210 B210 B 2 42 42 Further duplication without permission is prohibited. Visit www.chicagobusiness.com/section/reprints.

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MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS BANKING / FINANCE

>

Byline Bank, a subsidiary of Byline Bancorp, Inc. (NYSE:BY), promotes Ana Casanueva to Senior Vice President, Director of Legal.

Casanueva specializes in contracts, transactional law, securities regulations, M&A, corporate governance, policy development and investor relations. She has been with Byline since 2013 and also holds the position of Corporate Secretary for Byline Bank and its holding company Byline Bancorp, Inc.

ADVERTISING SECTION

To place your listing, visit www.chicagobusiness.com/companymoves or contact Debora Stein at 917.226.5470 / dstein@crain.com

BANKING Byline Bank, Chicago

Rachel Peck has been promoted to President of Entre Asset Management LLC, which provides property & asset management services to a portfolio of industrial, office and retail properties for both institutional and private investor clients. She joined Entre in 2020 with 20+ years of experience overseeing portfolios of 56 million SF while developing and maintaining solid tenant/buyer and landlord/seller relationships. Rachel received her BA from Carthage College, and a Masters from DePaul University.

women equity?

Is there a future forr wo omen in private priv eq quiity? t I see more women in private privvaaatte eq equity than ther re have have been, been, be en,, soo I think thin th tthi hink inkk it’s itt’ss getg get ge there have modest. ting better. The inroads oads h ave been b modest.

Reprinted R eprinted with permission permission n from f om Crain’s Chica fro Chicago aggoo Business. ago Busines Busi Busines Bu Business i s. © 2 in 2021 021 021 Crain rain n Communications Communicatio ommunicatio Inc. All rights rrig res rese reser reserved. errv rvve eed d.

Fu urther duplicatio on w itho out pe permission p e is prohibited hib bi d. V Visitt www.

Visit www.chicago www.chicagobusiness.com/section/reprints. www.chicagobusiness.com/section/r www.chicagobusiness.com/sect www.chicagobusiness.com/section/reprints .chi hicagobusiness.com/section/rep agob obusiness.com/section/reprints. b sines ine com/section/reprint m/section/reprints. / ti tio /re i t #C ##CB21015 B2 B21015 210 10 015 15 5 Further duplication without prohibited.

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8/25/21 8:08 AM

CRAIN’S CHICAGO BUSINESS • AUGUST 30, 2021 13

FRESHMAN YEAR: Remote learning tested the resolve of first-year college students. PAGE 14 SURVIVAL LESSON: A CPS senior wants students to get credit for what the pandemic taught them. PAGE 15

EDUCATION LOSS

ACCOUNTABILITY: Educational equity demands improved data systems and analysis capacity. PAGE 17

LOST YEAR

Henry Santos

As students return to classrooms, the emphasis is on the harder-to-quantify gains during the pandemic shutdown rather than the usual academic scorekeeping | BY A.D. QUIG Abbey Hambright and her son, Henry Santos, snuggle together in front of a computer screen. Henry, awake a little earlier than usual, hugs two stuffed animals as his mom talks about the school year that wasn’t.

The Hambrights are just one CPS family grappling with what the term “learning loss” means as a new school year begins. The loose definition is any loss or reversal of academic progress because of interrupted schooling, student absence or lower-quality teaching. It has taken on new meaning in the pandemic era.

Pre-COVID, learning loss discussions often centered on the “summer slide,” or the downturn in student achievement scores af-

ter months on break. Summer declines are typically steeper for math than reading, more acute for higher grade levels and, on average, equal a month’s worth of school-year learning. But the pandemic presented different, immeasurable losses: family deaths, illnesses or unemployment, plus social and emotional connections with teachers, fellow classmates and the school community as a whole.

Hambright, echoing many educators, says the term and fears around it don’t account for new skills learned during the pandemic.

Resilience, for one. Plus new responsibilities.

Henry, 8, now prepares meals, does chores and takes care of the dogs. His reading, typing and tech abilities “exploded” during the

pandemic, Hambright says.

“If I spent a whole day reading one chapter book, I could finish it,” Henry interjects (“Percy Jackson & the Olympians” is “my favorite series. Well, second favorite.”). Hambright gave several large-type picture books away because Henry didn’t need them.

“I just don’t think they have lost things they’ve learned,” Hambright says, reflecting on Henry’s third grade year at National Teachers Academy in Chicago’s South Loop. While it was stressful and emotional—especially in the fall and winter, when they were the most isolated—Hambright says she’s not too worSee LOST YEAR on Page 18

ALYCE HENSON

THE

MORE FORUM ONLINE See Crain’s in-depth stories, interactives and guest columns on Education loss and these previous topics:  Education Loss  Great Lakes Pollution  Post-COVID Chicago  Workplace Diversity  Gun Violence and COVID-19  Manufacturing  The Future of Capitalism  Lake Michigan  Work-Life  Freight  Regional Planning

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14 August 30, 2021 • CRAIN’S CHICAGO BUSINESS

The year Chicago high school graduates were put to the test

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JASON MCGREGOR

Online classes weren’t going smoothly for Alexandro ­Sanchez.

A first-time student at Harold Washington College last fall, Sanchez struggled to connect with professors and peers in a fully virtual setting. And when his midterm grades came back worse than expected, Sanchez decided to call it quits.

“I did terribly, even though I felt like I did well on (the exams), so it was just kind of a slap in the face,” said Sanchez, 19, who attended Solorio Academy High School on the city’s Southwest Side. “I studied. I did all the work.

I was just kind of in a rut.”

As colleges gear up to start another school year in the throes of a pandemic, many are still trying to figure out the right mix of in-person and virtual learning opportunities. School leaders want to avoid a repeat of last year, when the health crisis led to enrollment drops at both fouryear universities and two-year community colleges. But it’s not clear what plan best serves students. While remote learning offers more flexibility for nontraditional students, who are often balancing coursework with parenting or a job, it can also be an isolating experience that makes difficult topics more challenging to understand, prompting some to drop out.

At Chicago State University, the focus is bringing back as many in-person classes as possible.

Last fall, only a limited number of courses—mainly ones in the health sciences or STEM fields requiring lab components—were held in person, just 20% of all classes schoolwide.

That flipped when the new school year began Aug. 23. Most classes resumed in person, and just 15% are continuing remotely.

“Overall, we are finding remote learning to be a good fit for our graduate students, but not our undergraduate students,” spokeswoman Erin Steva said in a statement. “Challenges like the technology divide (both internet and laptop access) and the need for strong social, emotional and academic supports prevent remote instruction from being a strong choice for our undergraduate students.”

Nearly 90% of Chicago State students are low income and 70% are Black, according to the

school. The public university in the Far South Side’s Rosemoor neighborhood has struggled with massive enrollment loss for about a decade, with attendance dropping about 66% since 2010.

During the pandemic, enrollment plunged 8.3% to 2,489 students.

But Alex Seeskin, chief strategy officer at the University of Chicago’s Urban Education Institute, cautions schools against rushing to eliminate remote options. Data collected by Seeskin showed that Chicago Public Schools graduates were more likely to return to four-year universities for their sophomore years in fall 2020 instead of switching to community colleges.

That metric, known as the reverse transfer rate, dropped from 6% in 2019 to 2.6% in 2020, according to a recent report by the To&Through Project, a research arm of the Urban Education Institute. The report also found increased retention for CPS students continuing at four-year universities, from 79% in 2019 to 80.6% in 2020.

It’s too early to draw definitive conclusions about CPS graduates’ reverse transfer rate, Seeskin says. But he suggested that increasing remote classes benefited students who might have otherwise needed to drop out for personal reasons.

“There may be a little bit of a phenomena for students who, in previous years, would have had to go home for a family emergency, because of financial issues or just because they needed to take care of a family member,” Seeskin says.

“We know from our research that transferring, taking leaves, those sorts of ruptures in students’ educational careers in college can be really devastating to their future outcomes. Any types of policies that can reduce that and give students as many different options as possible to continue with their existing educational institution are for the good.”

Of all institutions, community colleges struggled the most during the pandemic. The U of C report found first-time community college enrollment by CPS students declined nearly 4% last year compared with that at fouryear universities, which slid only 1%. Statewide, enrollment at Illinois’ 48 community colleges

JASON MCGREGOR

BY ELYSSA CHERNEY

PAUL GOYETTE

To help students succeed, colleges are still trying to figure out the right mix of in-person and virtual learning

plummeted 14.2% for all students in spring 2021 compared with an average decline of 3.2% over the four preceding years.

Including public and private four-year universities, the decline for undergraduate students was just 0.7% while graduate student enrollment increased 5.4%, according to data from the Illinois Board of Higher Education.

Colleges and universities, for their part, have tried to stem the losses. Many schools made grading policies more flexible, such as allowing students to take classes on a pass-fail basis, to ease the transition to online learning.

Outside the classroom, schools beefed up financial assistance, using federal relief money to provide emergency grants to students and allowing students with higher unpaid balances to register for classes.

Gregory Robinson, assistant vice president of student services and development at Elgin Community College, said the school implemented a tempo-

rary “no-harm grading policy” and extended the drop deadline for classes so students had more time to decide.

Under that policy, which expired after the spring 2020 semester, students could convert D or F grades to “no credit,” which wouldn’t count against their grade point averages. A note added to students’ transcripts also reflects that “extreme circumstances” affected instruction.

The students, Robinson says, “had to pivot quickly to remote learning, and a lot of our students had never taken online classes before, so we were cognizant of that.”

Though online classes didn’t work out for Sanchez, he thinks he found a better fit. After withdrawing from Harold Washington, part of the city’s seven-school network of community colleges, Sanchez signed up for a job training program called Year Up that his high school counselor recommended.

Alexandro Sanchez, top, struggled to connect with professors and classmates as a first-time student at Harold Washington College last fall.

This year the college will offer both in-person and remote classes.

Sanchez is now completing a six-month IT internship at Exelon’s downtown office, where he helps service and ship computers to employees. Before the internship, he finished a five-month preparation program through Year Up that taught him everything from writing professional emails to using software troubleshooting tools.

Though the training classes were also online, they felt more engaging because students were required to show their faces on video and work with each other on group projects.

At this point, Sanchez isn’t sure whether he’ll return to college. He said he hopes to do well during the internship, which could help him land a longterm gig as a contractor, and he is exploring professional certifications to advance a career he plans in IT. He adds, “The same cost of one college class can pay for five different certifications, and the books to go with them.”

JIM KIRK PUBLISHER • ANN DWYER EDITOR • CASSANDRA WEST FORUM EDITOR • THOMAS J. LINDEN CREATIVE DIRECTOR • JASON McGREGOR DIGITAL DESIGN DIRECTOR • KAREN FREESE ZANE ASSOCIATE CREATIVE DIRECTOR • SCOTT WILLIAMS COPY CHIEF

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We learned to survive a pandemic. That’s huge.

JASON MCGREGOR

PAUL GOYETTE

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mates after class, getting to know s my peers and I head people I would have never been back to school in person friends with had I not made this full time for the first time extra effort. However, for most of in a year and a half, nerves are my peers, this was not the case. I running high. How am I going to witnessed students who went the manage everything that I have entire year without verbally comtaken on during the pandemic, municating with their teachers or plus adjust to seeing my friends classmates, never even turning and teachers every day? I don’t on their camera for class. It is want to go back to the classroom these students’ experiences that and pretend this pandemic year Layan Nazzal is a didn’t happen. It’s not back to senior at Taft High adults and school leaders must business as usual.

School in Chicago. consider as we go back to in-person learning.

This past year has been dreadAdults need to stop using the term ful for most students. A report by the American Psychiatric Association states that “Gen “learning loss.” Young people are still trying Z teens (ages 13–17) and Gen Z adults (ages to survive a global pandemic and manage our coursework. We are trying to cope and 18–23) were facing unprecedented uncerrebuild our community. So many people tainty, experiencing elevated stress and were dying and, especially initially, public already reporting symptoms of depression.” health officials didn’t know what to do, yet I This resonates with me. I went from being a was still expected to show up to school and motivated and driven student to struggling to get up in the morning and submitting my pretend that my work mattered. It doesn’t make sense to say I did not learn. assignments on time.

When summer arrived, I committed to The lack of connectivity and social isolaimproving my community and engaging in tion left me feeling helpless, overwhelmed politics through Mikva Challenge. I started and anxious. I was very involved in school clubs before we went virtual. Not being able working on issues that mattered to me. I did that all online without ever even meeting to interact with other students or people in most people. So, yeah, to say I lost learnperson broke my spirit. ing is wrong. It’s an insult to the personal Toward the end of my sophomore year, growth and development that I and other I tried to adjust to my new environment. It students experienced the last year and a didn’t work, so in my junior year I comhalf. Some students had to get jobs to help mitted to getting to know my teachers their parents make ends meet, and others and peers better. I made an effort to have had to take care of their younger siblings conversations in the virtual classroom and and support their virtual learning because to turn on my camera often. I would hang their parents worked or because their parout with my teachers and a few of my class-

ents could not speak English.

We did not lose a year or more of learning. That dismisses the fact that we were not taught how to survive a global pandemic or how to navigate learning on our own. For me, this is a new buzzword that just places standardized testing ahead of the student’s mental health and well-being. It doesn’t do justice to what we went through in the past year. Most district leaders, administrators and teachers are focusing on the school rating and test prep, and preparing to teach the material that students “lost” when really, they should be listening to our fears and concerns about going back to school.

Returning to school will be a challenge for everyone, but it will be important for us to collectively create a new, safe learning environment. And assure our parents that we will be protected both physically and mentally. I hope school leaders create spaces for student feedback and criticisms when we return. This is essential. With mental health at an all-time low along with the inequity and racial issues impacting our most marginalized communities, it is crucial for adults to seek out and listen to our perspectives and lived experiences. Take what we learned this last year and a half—and learn from it.

MENTAL HEALTH

Ways parents can show up as kids return to school

O

Here are six strategies adults can ver the past year and a half, use to support children’s mental children lost virtually all health: sense of normalcy. Without the ability to socialize with peers in w Role-play mental health disand out of school, screen time and cussions. The ability to support isolation increased alongside feelstudents and sit with grief is not ings of anxiety and helplessness. A an inherent skill. It takes practice, recent report by Lurie Children’s especially for parents whose first Hospital shows that nearly half of instinct is often to fix rather than Chicago parents reported reaching listen. Practice conversations will out to their child’s primary care Alexa James is help better prepare adults to talk doctor with a mental health conthe CEO of the cern over the last six to 12 months. National Alliance about what it may feel like to go through the transition to in-person This is deeply troubling, but it also on Mental Illness learning and build confidence for shows that parents are ready to Chicago. future dialogue. equip themselves with the tools to support mental wellness for their children w Be consistent. Children learn the safety of and themselves. the world by watching us and our behaviors.

Now is the time for parents, guardians If adults announce that mental health is our and teachers to lean in and ensure our priority, then we need to back it up. You will kiddos get the support they need. It may break trust if there is incongruence between feel intimidating or foreign, but you are not what you say and what you do day to day. alone. I work in this space every day and still No one is perfect, and we will be misaligned find these conversations with my children sometimes, but the power of apology and tough. However, resilience-building—sitting ownership is huge, particularly for youth through this transition with our children in a who feel very little power about decisions. way that feels connected and supportive—is learnable and necessary. w Harness the power of relationships and As an adult—and, frankly, as a human— resources. Regardless of your age, finding a one of the worst things you can do is turn community with shared lived experiences your back on a child’s trauma. With the to lean on is an incredibly healing resource proper tools and resources, my hope is that that shows us that we aren’t alone. Parents adults across Chicago will move forward and teachers should find support in one anwith the understanding that they are capaother and empower students to do the same ble of making a difference in a child’s life.

P013-P020_CCB_20210830.indd 15

within their own communities. Utilize the school social workers and support staff that have been specially trained to provide guidance on a variety of mental health scenarios. w Demonstrate flexibility.

Transitioning back to in-person learning may disrupt young people’s sleep, eating and other patterns. While disruption and behavioral changes may be normal, they should not go unnoticed.

Treat students with grace and patience as they adjust and ask them about these changes without judgment. Just listen and see them. Instead of solutions like “You should go to bed earlier,” try “I bet you are tired. Are you worried about anything that is keeping you up?” w Collaborate on a family or classroom mission statement. Ask your family or classroom, “How do we want to be with one another?” Mission statements and shared norms are a great tool for building community, trust and shared expectations when the child’s voice is at the center. These values also help establish accountability for both kids and the adults looking after them. w Utilize NAMI Chicago’s free help line,

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CRAIN’S CHICAGO BUSINESS • August 30, 2021 15

833-626-4244. Just as we ask parents and teachers to show up for the youth of Chicago, NAMI Chicago will show up for parents and teachers as they embark on this journey. Our vow is this: We will not leave you hanging when you need support navigating your own mental health or how to best care for others.

As we focus on supporting children, it is important to remember that feeling healthy and capable ourselves is the first step toward being able to show up for somebody else.

Adults, NAMI has resources for you, too.

Together, we can ensure a more resilient Chicago.

8/27/21 2:51 PM

16 August 30, 2021 • CRAIN’S CHICAGO BUSINESS

RETHINKING ‘MASTERY’

Focus less on ‘learning loss,’ more on learning leaps A

they “lost” something last year. s we start the new acThese young teenagers, many of ademic year, I want to whom will be first-generation welcome my students college students, are deeply refreshed and ready to learn. worried that they will no longer Instead, I worry about their anxbe able to get into good colleges, iety that has been building since get good jobs and provide for last winter. As last year’s remote their families. As a teacher, I and hybrid learning continued, know this cannot be further I noticed a drop in attendance, from the truth. I know how hard particularly among top-achievwe worked to ensure all stuing students. They told me the Krista Wilson is dents learned at the same level idea of getting out of bed was a seventh- and as pre-pandemic learners. No too much—not because they eighth-grade math matter what skills my students were lazy, but because they were teacher at Acero possess when they start high experiencing depression-like Charter Schools’ school, these students will be symptoms. Some students Spc. Daniel constantly labeled “behind.” were missing my class to attend Zizumbo Campus Telling students they are virtual therapy sessions. In fact, in Chicago and a “behind” and have “gaps” is a around 15% of my eighth grade Teach Plus Illinois math students were seeing a senior policy fellow. misnomer and a huge disservice to them as they strive for therapist to address school-reexcellence. When I read that a student lated anxiety. That is a worrisome number. is behind, my first question is, behind As a teacher, I am inundated by emails whom? The students I taught last year telling me how to “counteract learning learned differently than those I taught the loss.” I know my school is not alone—a year before. However, among their peers, Google search for “coronavirus learning my students all performed at the same loss” returns 410,000 scholarly articles. level. In the spring, as I looked at 60 Zoom Thirteen- and 14-year-old students spent squares, I saw learners mastering complex last year internalizing the harmful narskills, like solving systems of equations by rative that they are behind. Now as they graphing on a computer. Previous cohorts prepare for the transition into high school, could only solve these systems on paper. they will again face the suggestion that

The term “learning loss” is deficit-based and implies that students are lacking something. Instead, we should be using asset-based language. We should be talking a lot less about “learning loss” and a lot more about the learning leaps my students took last year. They showed technological mastery I never thought possible. As I began to plan in August 2020, I assumed I would only see pictures of student work, but together my students and I figured out how to complete eighth grade mathematics without paper or pencil. Beyond math

skills, I watched students take selfies on Chromebooks and use a computer program to create a pencil-like sketch for art. My students adapted and grew in ways that will only strengthen their likelihood of success in an ever-advancing technological world.

No child should ever feel like they are “behind” because of a murky standard. As we get ready to reopen our schools, let’s make sure we’re using the right language and making the right comparisons. The COVID-19 pandemic has given us the opportunity to rethink education and the

EMPHASIZE THE POSITIVES

What students gained: New perspectives on life

M

The necessity of e-learning due arch 2020 abruptly to the COVID-19 pandemic changed the landscape forced schools to rapidly re-evalof education in ways uate their instructional practicthat no one could have images, student learning goals and ined. Almost instantly, schools schoolwide priorities. were forced to include various As I enter my 10th year as a forms of e-learning into eduhigh school principal, I have cational programs while also never been more excited to making sure students had access welcome students back into to Wi-Fi, laptops and other school. To describe the previequipment. Most schools were Femi Skanes is ous school year as difficult just able to create models that were the principal of doesn’t adequately reflect the sustainable until the end of the Morgan Park High inordinate amount of stress that school year with hopes that the School.

I faced. The ever-shifting national new school year would return to COVID guidance continued to alter state a traditional school model. Unfortunately, and district guidance for schools, which the science did not agree, and for many ultimately made it difficult to create stable students, e-learning was the reality for the plans. Teachers and staff needed clear inentire 2020-21 school year, too. struction so they could effectively create lesAlthough many educators, students and sons. Parents needed answers so they could parents voiced frustration with the e-learnmake the best decisions for their families. ing model, others found virtual learning Students also needed answers about how an appealing model. The effectiveness of COVID would impact their overall school e-learning continues to be widely debated, experience. Attending to the needs of all but there is one fact that cannot be argued:

P013-P020_CCB_20210830.indd 16

stakeholders was exhausting.

There were days when the weight of leadership seemed almost too much to bear.

Nonetheless, I stayed focused on working with our school community to ensure that we met the needs of our students, even in a virtual environment. In fact, the urgency around building a new instructional model in a short period of time sparked a new level of leadership innovation. We learned to utilize virtual tutoring options, launched

shared college-level courses across multiple high schools and created flexible asynchronous professional development opportunities for teachers. These are just a few practices that were born out of the COVID experience that should continue to live in our school communities.

In hindsight, I do see one glaring flaw in our pandemic thinking: To equate students’ lack of traditional school experience with learning loss was—and is­—a mistake. It is

8/27/21 2:51 PM

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CRAIN’S CHICAGO BUSINESS • August 30, 2021 17

ACCOUNTABILITY

Stronger data ‘culture’ would reinforce educational equity W

meaning of the term “mastery.” What is it that signifies that an eighth grader is ready for high school? For me, it’s a firm grasp on solving algebraic equations and graphing lines, a desire to be an active member of the community and a thirst for learning and success. If they master these skills, I know my students will be successful. So let’s stop acting as though students are “lacking” and let’s talk about “leaping.”

Our children are listening, and we owe it to them to celebrate their work instead of disparaging what they’ve accomplished.

true that some standards may not have been taught as thoroughly as they may have been covered during in-person instruction. However, many other opportunities for learning were manifested. For example, one of our student-led teams turned their passion for videography and photography into an opportunity to livestream all the sporting events and other school events that we were unable to attend in person. Other students learned new skills, such as cooking, baking and crafting, during quarantine. And all students learned a new level of empathy and patience for each other because of the pandemic.

It will be important for schools to focus on closing any academic gaps that may be related to a variety of COVID-related circumstances. Nonetheless, I believe students will benefit the most when schools use asset-based thinking paradigms to leverage students’ newly acquired skills to propel student success.

Our students will not be returning to us as broken vessels this fall. They will be returning to us with new perspectives on life. My charge as a principal is to work with teachers and staff to create a postCOVID learning environment that capitalizes on the innovations of e-learning while attending to potential academic gaps in a way that honors students’ new ways of seeing the world. I am optimistic and excited about what the new school year will offer.

P013-P020_CCB_20210830.indd 17

e’ve long known our education systems do not bend toward equal opportunity, and the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the inequities.

Thousands of Illinois young people did not enroll in early childhood education programs, could not log in to remote learning, or fell off track from high school to college. Many fell behind academically, and some endured social and emotional trauma. And those failed most by our systems? Young people of color and those in disadvantaged communities.

Unfortunately, we do not have an accurate picture of the pandemic’s full impact.

And we don’t have an easy way to find out.

This pandemic also has made glaringly clear that Illinois lacks the robust data systems and long-term commitment to measurement and evaluation necessary to tease out specific problems and target help to young people hit hardest by the pandemic.

Now is the time to change course.

Over the next few years, Illinois education institutions will receive about $9 billion in federal pandemic recovery funds. The governor’s office, the Illinois State Board of Education, 852 school districts, myriad child care centers and colleges will deploy the money on a cornucopia of efforts. What do these interventions look like? Who received them? And what was the impact?

It is more vital than ever that we build a stronger culture of evidence-based decision-making so we can target these investments—and future ones—toward policies and programs proven to work.

Luckily, we have some building blocks in place. Last year, Discovery Partners Institute launched the Illinois Workforce

Chibuzo Ezeigbo is a program officer in the Joyce Foundation’s Education & Economic Mobility Program, and Stephanie Banchero is the program’s director. The Joyce Foundation is a sponsor of Crain’s Forum. & Education Research Collaborative, which plans to research the most pressing education issues in the state. And state officials at each education agency have been meeting for years to try to link data systems together.

We must move faster. And we should follow the lead of the nearly two dozen other states that have set aside federal COVID relief funds to improve data systems and analysis capacity.

Here are three steps the state should take: w Invest in sustainable data infrastructure. Illinois has made foundational investments in the Illinois Longitudinal Data System, or ILDS, which will link early childhood, K-12, postsecondary and workforce data together. A data system of this breadth has the potential to help inform key decisions for policymakers, practitioners and the public, as we have seen in other states. To do this, Illinois should dedicate funding in the state budget to build out and sustain ILDS infrastructure.

w Institutionalize strategic analytic capacity. Some Illinois education institutions do not have the capacity—nor the will—to gather data, analyze it and make evidence-informed choices. Nor do they have robust research agendas. A culture change is necessary. By modeling strategic data usage, the state can also prod early childhood programs, districts and colleges to make evidence-informed decisions. State leaders also should identify clear responsibility for organizing and convening state-level conversations and for making connection points across research agendas. w Embrace transparency. We need accessible data on how students are being supported and how they are responding. We should publicize data across the pre-K-to-workforce spectrum by student race, poverty status and other key metrics through dynamic online data dashboards, reports and community conversations.

This would help identify bright spots and best practices to replicate or scale. And it can help pinpoint for educators where and when students are not getting the help they need.

Young people are amazingly resilient. They persevered through a painful year. We don’t know where they will be academically and emotionally when they return this school year. But it is imperative that state education leaders set them up for success.

Uncovering precisely where students are—academically, socially and emotionally—evaluating how they are responding to help and identifying which methods work best is vital if we hope to bend our education system toward the equity we all seek.

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18 August 30, 2021 • CRAIN’S CHICAGO BUSINESS

LOST YEAR

LEARNING RECOVERY

Chicago Public Schools plans to spend $525 million over the next two years on “Moving Forward Together,” a COVID learning-recovery program. It includes flexible funding for schools, additional tutors, summer and after-school programming, mental health supports, technology upgrades and professional development for teachers and staff. At the same time, the district is doing away with one of the tests it has used since 2013 to estimate students’ progress: the Measure of Academic Progress exam.

Instead, it’s allowing schools to opt in to two new ones. The district had scrapped administration of the test last year already, making it difficult to gauge COVID’s impact on learning and subsequent recovery.

National studies offer some insights. Both consulting firm McKinsey & Co. and NWEA, the Portland-based nonprofit organization that runs the MAP exam, have studied COVID impacts on learning. On average, NWEA found that students did make gains during the last school year, but at a lower rate compared with pre-pandemic trends.

Students ended the year with lower achievement compared with a typical year, more so in math (down 8 to 12 percentile points) than in reading (3 to 6 percentile points).

McKinsey analyzed another standardized test—Curriculum Associates’ i-Ready in-school assessment—for elementary school students in 40 states. “Students testing in 2021 were about 10 points behind in math and nine points behind in reading, compared with matched students in previous years,” McKinsey found, roughly equal to being “five months behind in math and four months behind in reading, compared with where (analysts) would expect them to be based on historical data.”

Those final results from NWEA and McKinsey were not as dire as

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initially predicted. But both analyses had something in common: Students “of color and low-income students suffered most,” the McKinsey analysis found. “Students in majority-Black schools ended the school year six months behind in both math and reading, while students in majority-white schools ended up just four months behind in math and three months behind in reading.”

And as NWEA’s Megan Kuhfeld pointed out at a recent Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago event, these analyses are likely a “somewhat rosy picture compared to reality.”

Why? “Many students did not test last year,” she said. That data is not included in these averages, and those kids are “most likely to be disconnected, those who fully disengaged. Those are the kids probably most impacted.”

Closer to home, CPS grade and attendance data analyzed by Chalkbeat Chicago for the first half of the 2020-21 school year found Black and Latino boys saw steeper drops in attendance and a sharper increase in failing grades than girls. And a WBEZ analysis of attendance and grades at CPS’ lowest-income high schools through the third quarter found a quarter of students “did not show up for class, online or in-person. “Grades at the end of the third quarter were also startlingly low at the 40 schools, which are clustered on the South and West sides. One in every five grades handed out in math or English was an F.” But some of the fretting about learning loss isn’t well placed, says Elaine Allensworth of the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research. Learning isn’t linear. “People have growth spurts just like any other skill. It’s not like you’re just adding knowledge that’s growing in students’ heads. It’s a much more flexible process than that,” she says. “What we usually see is students will bounce back if they had a bad year, or if they had a good year they might slow down the next year. That’s kind of normal and typical.”

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ried about whether Henry is meeting grade-level standards. “The only loss is the arbitrary curriculum and benchmarks. It just speaks to standardized testing and this idea that kids have to have learned certain things by certain times, or else.

Or else what? They’re not humans anymore? They’re not kids? They don’t count?”

For administrators, teachers and researchers, measuring COVID’s impact is a new challenge. First, how to assess learning gaps when so many schools skipped typical standardized testing, and when lost learners—those who stopped logging on or turning up to school in person—were disconnected entirely. Second, how to address what students might have missed during the last 17 months of interruptions, societal upheaval and a sudden transition to remote instruction without stigmatizing them. And third, how to differentiate disparate racial impacts that were caused by COVID, or only exacerbated by it.

Continued from Page 13

ENRICHING EXPERIENCES

Many, especially teachers, argue that while during the upheaval of the past 17 months, students might have fallen behind in certain testable aspects of learning—grade-level reading, math or science skills— they have been enriched by other experiences. And emphasizing deficits or signaling to students that they’re behind will only blunt the confidence they need now that they’re back in the classroom.

“The key thing is really to be monitoring students really closely in the school year for any kind of signs that they’re struggling,” Allensworth says. Provide them with extra instructional time if they need it, or other supports. But don’t overload them with missed content or ramp up expectations. “You want to make sure that students get this feeling that they can do the work,

Nina Hike, top, a 10th grade science teacher at George Westinghouse College Prep, engaged her chemistry students at home by tying hyperlocal social and environmental issues to what they were learning in their remote classroom. Jamelle Williams, above, a ninth grade math teacher at Noble’s Gary Comer College Prep, says his school is focusing this year on healing as students return in person. they feel like they can succeed.

That their teachers are there to help them succeed, they want them to succeed, and they will.”

But for some families, last year’s struggles are already affecting kids’ futures. One Lakeview mom raising two teenage sons in CPS said she was discouraged to see her sons’ engagement drop during remote learning last year. Dropped standardized test scores and grades followed. She did not want her sons to be identified when discussing grades. Her 17-year-old has an individual education plan, meaning he has certain accommodations for his classes. His teachers had trouble

initially using remote learning technology and connecting him with extra help. Now she feels “there’s no way he can go to a four-year university. . . .He’s not ready; he’s not prepared to go away. I think the whole thing stressed him out so much . . . his attention span has really been altered.”

Her younger son, a 14-year-old, says he lost motivation during the school year. His mother says she was “shocked” to see the drop in his MAP scores. Now she’s watching other close friends exiting CPS— and in one case, the state—to head to private schools. They’re leaving in part because of the upheaval of

recent years, including teachers strikes and the COVID response.

CONFIDENCE IS KEY

Jamelle Williams, a ninth grade math teacher at Noble’s Gary Comer College Prep on the city’s Southeast Side, is entering his ninth year of teaching. Students’ grasp on the building blocks of algebra range every year, he says, so he isn’t preparing for the school year with any sense of dread. “We meet (students) where they are, but we also set very high academic standards and targets for them to hit,” Williams says.

That first year is important, because “if students can do certain skills

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CRAIN’S CHICAGO BUSINESS • August 30, 2021 19

GRASSROOTS SOLUTIONS

The pandemic magnified the dearth of digital equity

T The “Because of Them, We Can” wall in the classroom of Kristin Parry, who teaches ninth grade multicultural literature at Gary Comer College Prep. Students can suggest adding new people.

CHANGE IN NATIONAL PERCENTILE RANKS Achievement levels dropped in every grade level in spring 2021 compared with spring 2019.

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That involves everything from solving equations to fluency with word problems and variables—in short, problem solving and critical thinking. Noble stresses SAT and traditional college readiness and prides itself on high college acceptance rates. But it’s also focusing this year on healing as students return in-person. Williams has a range of ways to measure student status: what teachers call “do now” quiz scores, earned merits and quarterly Noble networkwide interim assessments. And as a coach of football in the fall, wrestling in the winter and softball in the spring, Williams has plenty of opportunities to connect with kids outside the classroom, too.

The emphasis won’t be on loss, Williams and other Noble officials say, but on strengths learned during the pandemic, and growth as students learn more and meet

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their goals during the year.

Student confidence is also key for Nina Hike, a 10th grade science teacher at George Westinghouse College Prep, who marked her 25th year as a teacher in front of a screen.

Classroom dynamics shifted from Hike looking around the room to gauge whether students were keeping up to glancing at their Google Docs to see whether they had been taking notes. She gave up asking kids to turn on their cameras.

“The onus, if they understood or not, heavily fell on the students and them advocating for themselves, saying, ‘Slow down, Miss Hike.’ ” But she was heartened to see students helping each other out in the classroom chat.

She found different ways to engage her chemistry students at home: focusing on tying hyperlocal social and environmental issues to what students were learning in her classroom. That ranged from activism around General Iron’s plans to open a scrap metal-shredding operation along the Calumet River, the impact of the botched implosion of the former coal plant smokestack in Little Village and CPS’ problems with lead pipes.

“They began to look at where they went to grammar school and high school to see if lead was in the water. We learned about the effects of lead on the human body,” Hike said. “We were able to talk about oxidation reduction reactions and heavy metals and relative reactivities of metals and solubility. We explored those concepts through a social justice lens. I feel like bringing in what was happening in that moment allowed for some rich learning to take place, not just ‘let’s learn about the periodic table.’ ” Students learned how to write chemical formulas, balance equations and stoichiometry, how to make a natural cleaner at home and experimental variables like different ways to boil water faster. While she knows that academically students suffered, she doesn’t assume students will have a gap heading into next year. “Kids aren’t like buckets.

We’re not pouring stuff into their brains. We just need to rekindle that relationship in the classroom,” she says. And key to that is instilling confidence and ensuring students have access to mental health supports.

Nina Jacobs, who is entering her

junior year at Jones College Prep, isn’t worried about her grades too much. She got mostly A’s during remote learning last year. But she was looking forward to solidifying the friend group she made freshman year. Instead, she watched much of her classmates’ year through social media, for better or for worse.

Some lamented slipping grades and declining mental health, others shared offensive content about the election or pictures of themselves bending quarantine guidelines to hang out with each other.

“I’m a little apprehensive to find out what’s going to happen when we go back,” she says.

Guadalupe Carreon’s daughter, America, finished eighth grade at Orozco Community Academy and is heading to high school at Bulls College Prep. “It was a little sad because it was the last year of the school and she was saying maybe (she’s) not going to see (her friends) anymore,” she said, on top of frustration from being stuck at home.

How does Carreon feel heading into the new school year? Her daughter may not be 100 percent ready, “but I don’t have another option. It’s a pandemic, and she’s not the only one. . . .Most of the kids are a little behind. My question is, right now I don’t know if the pandemic is going to continue.”

Laquita Louie, the principal at the Curtis School of Excellence on the Far South Side, says she’s used funding from Chicago Public Schools to pay for summer activities that brought kids back to school for a little learning, but mostly fun.

Short reading and math assessments from those sessions are being used in professional development sessions with teachers so they can come up with lesson plans focused on learning acceleration— not slowing down.

Remediation, or holding kids back until they’ve mastered a specific skill, widens learning gulfs, Louie says. A first grader playing catch-up on kindergarten skills will be just as behind when they get to second grade, she says. “Remediation is a microaggression against Black and Brown students,” she says. Kids can learn as they go with the right supports in place, and her teachers are ready. “People I look for have grit. . . .The staff theme this year is fearless and ready.”

digital equity as a fundamenhe term “digital divide” tal right and creating digital has been around for more than three decades access resources for more than two decades. The consortium and still persists. And the divide has spawned an ever-wid- focuses on obtaining low-cost broadband, connecting digital ening technology gap that was literacy with relevant content/ exposed by the coronavirus service, making low-cost compandemic and into which puters available to community low-income communities of residents and operating public color have fallen and from access centers which they have yet for the benefit of to emerge. low-income neighFrom stilted or borhoods. This year, nonexistent access TBSP is working to high-speed with several organibroadband based zations to become on geography and one of these public income, shortagaccess centers. es of up-to-date Over the past 25 computer hardware years, TBSP, which and software for is committed to students and their improving academic families, to totally and economic prosskewed training perity in Black and and support serLatinx communities, vices, the dearth has offered numerof digital equity is ous programs aimed engulfing our chilat uplifting our comdren’s education, munities and strivour connectivity to ing toward greater knowledge and resources, our access Justin Douglas is equity and access for all. The Kimberly A. to health care and director of Lightford Saturday work opportunities, programs and University, a partand, for low-inPiette Clark is nership with Illinois come residents who the IT specialist state Sen. Lightford’s depend on SNAP at the Black Star office, runs in the benefits during this Project, an edufall and spring, aspandemic, access to cation advocacy sisting youth grades food itself. organization in five through eight Digital excellence Bronzeville. in receiving supis achieved when plementary support in STEM, all who wish to can integrate along with language arts, codthe internet comfortably into ing, linguistics and more. This their lives. Digital excellence past year during the COVID-19 is an ambitious goal that ties pandemic, TBSP ran a successthe future of a city like Chicago ful remote-learning program. to the strength of its residents and lays the groundwork for the Our newest offering is a Wednesday math homework use of the internet in transforhotline through Zoom where mative ways. As more people students get access to masintegrate technology into their ter teachers who assist with lives, businesses and commuhomework assignments or nities, we begin to see stronger academic enrichment. and more inclusive consumers, TBSP believes that grasshealthier and more producroots, community-based active communities and more ademic and educational proeffective government. In 2020, grams like these and countless the impact of the coronavirus pandemic has again spotlighted others across the city will have the digital divide and tech gaps, the greatest impact in closing the academic achievement which still engulf our commugap—especially for youth most nities of color. affected by racial, digital and So what is the solution? The Black Star Project, or TBSP, has socioeconomic disparity. Too often, we’ve seen how access been working with a number to quality education is impedof organizations and compaed by such barriers as class, nies to address these issues. wealth and political interest. In One such organization is the a rapidly changing world, we Digital Excellence Consormust help set up our children tium, a group of organizations for success through advocacy, whose founders, leaders, staff engagement and collective and volunteers have been action. addressing and advocating for

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20 August 30, 2021 • CRAIN’S CHICAGO BUSINESS

A belief that experiences make the best teachers

BY CASSANDRA WEST Imran Khan is the co-founder and CEO of Embarc, a community-driven, experienced-based learning program that inspires and prepares low-income students for college and career success. The central idea is rooted in dissolving physical and mental borders that awaken students to the possibilities of their potential. The 10-year organization has attracted support from some of Chicago’s leading benefactors, including Northern Trust, Allstate, the Chicago Community Trust and Crown Family Philanthropies. Crain’s talked with Khan about the Embarc model and the school year ahead. This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

KHAN: Yeah, and after I became a teacher, I started to recognize that we were investing all these resources, part of (CPS’) Turnaround (schools initiative), to change outcomes for young people, but we didn’t address the No. 1 thing: Young people have rarely had the opportunity to understand who they are, where they belong, how much of the world is out there, what they could be, what they could do, how much of the world needs them. That was the beginning of Embarc, which is about how do you change the experiences young people have so that they can change the way they see themselves and their place in the world and they can learn those key skills that build really strong relationships with their classmates and their teachers.

How did that go during the shutdown?

We started Embarc also to change the way we think about school and what young people are experiencing schools. That means priorities are not just about content knowledge, about what you’re learning about math and science. It’s about the relationships you’re building and the identity you’re building and your vision of what’s possible for you. Schools are now prioritizing the relationships that young people have with teachers. They’re measuring that.

And students are giving back survey data and talking about over time (whether) their relationships with their classmates and teachers are increasing. This is a fundamental aspect of how you create, transform what schools are, which means they should be trauma-healing. They should be bias-reducing. They should be places that really focus on the fundamentals of what makes people who they are.

How did you navigate through the last year?

For the 2,500 students in 20 schools we serve, we transitioned all of our curriculum and experiences virtually. We got companies from all across the city of Chicago as well as youth organizations like Assata’s Daughters and other community orgs who are leading the racial justice movement for our city to design virtual online experiences. We saw a lot of success with that. What we saw was young people engaging in not just a single experience but sometimes an experience that lasted a week to six weeks. They were able to create projects and then share them with organizations and nonprofits across the city.

CHRISTINA NOEL PHOTOGRAPHY

CRAIN’S: You were a CPS high school teacher before starting Embarc.

Through Embarc, hands-on learning experiences allow CPS students to try everything from rock climbing to woodworking.

The U Chicago Consortium has recognized Embarc as one of the best at designing developmental experiences in the country. Why is your model successful?

Everything we’ve learned to this date about learning science, about neuroscience, about behavioral science, about what good education is, points to the fact that developmental experiences are experiences, and relationships are one of the most powerful tools to change outcomes for young people, to increase achievement. It is undoubted.

It is irrefutable. Everywhere across the country, everyone deep in education knows this; however, our schools don’t have the capability nor the tools and the training to implement those to go their fullest.

Not many years ago, there was so much talk about education reform, school choice, charter schools. Then along came a pandemic. How has that reshaped the thinking around public education?

During the pandemic, we realized how deeply interconnected we are and how important it is to create solutions that support all of our young people. That is why we need to find solutions that are serving our public schools, where 90% of our (people of color) students are. Chicago Public Schools is 90% people of color in a city that’s 50% white. So if we want to create change that begins to even address the generations of racism and the systems of racism, then we need to ensure that we are working on dramatically empowering our public education system.

We’re a few days away from a new school year. What are your hopes or expectations for it?

We’ve begun live training all of our

Imran Khan is co-founder and CEO of Embarc. teachers in all of our schools. We’ve taken some of our teachers out of the building for outdoor training and simulations of field experiences. We’ve programmed a year for all of the 4,000 students we’re serving this coming fall. We’re planning on going full on and ensuring that our young people get to experience the world and get beyond their experiences. We are planning for the best; however, we have our backup plans. We’ve ensured that most of our partners are going to be able to provide young people experiences in safe environments, like outdoors or highly ventilated spaces. We have partners who also are bringing their experiences to the school buildings. We’ve made sure all the vaccinations and all CPS requirements are being met.

Are you seeing other organizations do work similar to Embarc’s?

As the University of Chicago says, we’re one of the best in the country. We are also one of the few that has primarily built its work in public schools. Most anybody else who forays in this world are private institutions, private schools and charter schools. We are one of the country’s best but also one of the only public scalable solutions.

If you were the superintendent of, say, a large school district like Chicago—which doesn’t have a permanent chief at the moment—what would be your priorities for this year and for the long term?

I would ensure that all of the COVID dollars that are coming from the federal government are going directly to our young people and the schools they’re in to enhance and enrich their learning. I would also work with partners in our city who are driving and pushing innovation (and) those solutions that we know work best, to scale them up and make sure they get to our young people. When you’re a large institution like CPS, you move in a snail’s pace. When you have organizations that are highly innovative and serving a lot of young people, you can take 10 steps when a school system can only take two. And the school system has to really have an aggressive partnership strategy in order to be able to take the learnings from those organizations and scale them across the city. Our data shows that Embarc has 30% better outcomes across the board than CPS has. It also shows CPS teachers and schools have a massive demand for the work that we do.

“SCHOOLS SHOULD BE PLACES THAT FOCUS ON THE FUNDAMENTALS OF WHAT MAKES PEOPLE WHO THEY ARE.” Imran Khan

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BarDavid at the University of Chicago serves up modern Mediterranean food.

10 hot restaurants that opened this summer RESTAURANTS from Page 3 restrictions in Chicago were peeled back as the virus ebbed.

“If you open with one hand tied behind your back, people forget that it was COVID,” says John McDonald, founder of Mercer Street Hospitality, which opened Lure Fishbar in June. “They just don’t really remember you because you didn’t have the opportunity to make a good impression.”

Seventy-six restaurants have opened in Chicago since May 1, down from 182 during the same period in 2019, according to data from market research firm Datassential.

Here’s a look at 10 newcomers.

AVLI ON THE PARK 180 N. Field Blvd.

The fourth Avli location officially opened in mid-May just north of Millennium Park, taking over a spot in the Lakeshore East development that III Forks steakhouse once occupied. The food—from pita bread to desserts—is made fresh. Wine, olive oil and other ingredients are imported from Greece. Diners can order a whole fish for the table or lamb chops to share. “It’s the way you eat in Greece,” says managing partner Louie Alexakis. “It’s rare in Greece that everyone gets their own entree.”

BARDAVID 1201 E. 60th St. The University of Chicago opened the fine dining establishment inside one of its new buildings, the David Rubenstein Forum, in July.

Chef Marco Bahena, formerly of Everest, serves up modern Mediterranean food that considers the African and Asian influence in the region. There’s Moroccan lamb shank, Basque chicken croquettes, and vegetable dishes that could turn a meat eater vegetarian, says Tracy McCabe, associate vice president in the office of the president. Look for modern art in the building on loan from hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin.

CHIKATANA 850 W. Fulton Market The Fulton Market District cantina is named for the chicatana, a flying ant that emerges in Oaxaca with spring rains and ends up on restaurant menus. Chikatana is the first restaurant from new group Spearhead Hospitality, which was formed by veterans of the Robey

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in Bucktown. It opened in June, replacing City Tap. Chef Guillermo Reyes worked previously at Mi Tocaya Antojeria and Mercat a la Planxa. Tortillas are made by hand, and Midwestern produce inspires the Mexican menu items, says general manager and wine director Laine Peterson.

EN PASSANT 3010 W. Diversey Ave. There was a brief time in chef Sam Engelhardt’s life when he was opening a restaurant every few months.

He was the opening chef de cuisine at renowned burger joint Au Cheval and later did consulting work. It was time for something all his own.

Engelhardt opened En Passant in late April. Why now? “You get attached to (the restaurants) personally, so when you have to leave them it’s very difficult and it hurts,” he says. “To be able to hold onto it and be like nope, I’m not going anywhere—that’s why.” En Passant is BYOB for now and serves a brief menu of the types of foods Engelhardt says he gets excited about seeing on menus.

ESMÉ 2200 N. Clark St. Wife-and-husband team Katrina Bravo and Jenner Tomaska opened Esmé in mid-August. Bravo did marketing at the Alinea Group, and Tomaska was chef at Michelin-starred Next. Esmé leans into the duo’s fine dining background, with tasting menus rotating seasonally. They also aim to add a dash of art and philanthropy: Esmé plans to have collaboration dinners with artists, with a portion of proceeds going to their projects or causes.

Art on the walls is up for consignment, too, Tomaska says. The wine list also heavily features minority and women producers. Esmé’s 15to 16-course tasting menu is $185 on weeknights and $200 on weekends. Reservations can be booked through Resy. The 16-seat bar will be open for walk-ins soon.

GIOIA RISTORANTE E PASTIFICIO 1133 W. Randolph St. The West Loop Italian restaurant opened in late June, and offers more than a half dozen types of pasta made in house daily. Chef and partner Federico Comacchio, an Italian native, worked previously at 437 Rush and Coco Pazzo. The bar opens at 4 p.m. daily, with dinner service starting an hour later.

LARDON 2200 N. California Ave. The meats served at this salumeria in Logan Square are cured onsite, waiting sometimes months until they’re ready to be served.

“We’re making everything in house to be enjoyed within our walls at our tables,” says owner Steve Lewis. “There’s so much time and patience that goes into it.” Executive Chef Chris Thompson focuses on using the whole animal: Bones are made into stock, skin into chicharrones. Jams, pickles, mustards and other fixings are made in house, too, while the cheese comes from creameries. The restaurant— named for the “unctuous little tidbit of pork”—opened in mid-July, and is the first project from Meadowlark Hospitality, Lewis says.

Look for two additional outlets, coming soon.

LURE FISHBAR 616 N. Rush St. The upscale seafood restaurant comes to Chicago by way of New York, where the original Lure is located. The local outpost in the 21c Museum Hotel Chicago building was supposed to open in spring 2020, but waited until restrictions were peeled back to ensure Lure’s opening made a splash.

THE EXCHANGE 224 S. Michigan Ave. The latest project from the folks behind DMK Burger Bar and Ada Street is located in Daniel Burnham’s Railway Exchange Building on Michigan Avenue (the one with the Motorola sign). Eventually, the Exchange will have several restaurants, including a bar called Theo’s. A skylight-filled dining area called the Atrium will be the main draw, says Chef Brian Huston. The Listening Room, a 40-seat dining room with a sound system catering to audiophiles and modeled on listening rooms in Japan, opened in late June.

TORCHIO 738 N. Wells St. The River North pasta bar opened in May with menu items inspired by chef and owner Bill Varley and his wife’s travels throughout Italy. Torchio means “press” in Italian, and the name was inspired by a vintage hand-crank pasta press. True to its name, the pastas served at Torchio are made in house.

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QUANTITATIVE STRATEGIES TECHNOLOGY & OPERATIONS ANALYST (Citadel Enterprise Americas LLC – Chicago, IL) Mult. Pos. avail.: Collab with senior tech & bus leaders to create & execute strategic roadmaps for improv’g the firm’s quant res tech, trad’g tech & ops. F/T. Req a Bach’s deg (or foreign equiv) in Ops Res, Bus Admin, Fin, Econ, Stat or rel & 2 yrs of exp in the job offered or participat’g in the dvlpmnt & eval of bus strat rel to tech, ops or bus dvlpmnt.

Must have 1 yr of exp in each of the follow’g: fin & operational modeling with MS Excel VBA; data visualization in Tableau or sim; script’g with Python & SQL; multivariate regression analysis; & conduct’g econ res or fin industry rsrch. Resumes: Citadel Enterprise Americas LLC, Attn: ER/LE, 131 S Dearborn St, 27th Fl, Chicago, IL 60603.

JOBID: 5787186.

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8/27/21 4:28 PM

DIVERSITY IN RECRUITING AND HIRING

PROGRAMS AND STRATEGIES THAT WORK

Workplace diversity is more important than ever as job seekers, employees, vendors and consumers seek out organizations committed to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). Companies that don’t evolve risk a dwindling candidate pool, diminished market share and lost profitability. Four executives involved with various aspects of workplace diversity shared their insights with Crain’s Content Studio.

What does diversity, equity and inclusion mean to your organization?

Gloria Cotton: At inQUEST, diversity refers to all aspects of any/all human beings, known and unknown, evident and obscure.

Equity refers to the resources and support people need to be successful and to feel included that meet the needs of their unique diversity.

Inclusion refers to the experience people have in working and being with others and the behaviors that result in them feeling welcome, valued, respected, heard, understood and supported for who they are as human beings, for the job/work they do and how they do it. We want everyone to know they have a right to expect to be seen and heard for who they are, that they add and have the potential to add value, that they’ll feel safe to be themselves when

we agree or disagree, and that our supplying the accommodations they need is one of the ways we prove we see and hear them individually, not stereotypically or unrealistically.

Samantha Lewandowski: DEI means acceptance for all who are employed with TAWANI Enterprises, now and in the future.

Our staff represents a range of races, nationalities, sexualities, genders, religions and ages, and we value each person coming from a different background with unique experiences. We encourage our staff to use empathy in all work situations to build a stronger, more connected workforce. Jennifer N. Pritzker, our president and CEO, has publicly supported inclusion and anti-discrimination legislation and practices and truly leads by example in creating a welcoming environment for all.

Rheaana Guess: At Delta Dental of Illinois, DEI doesn’t just mean hiring, retaining and promoting diverse talent, it also means creating an environment where employees feel seen, heard, respected, understood and motivated to contribute. We strive to be a safe place where constructive two-way communication and cross-cultural understanding empowers all employees to be authentic. This enables employees to better connect with and understand each other, our clients and those in the community we serve.

Pamela Moore-Thompson: UScellular embraces diversity as one of the foundational values important to our strong culture. We commit daily to openly supporting the individual strengths of each of our associates and valuing the uniqueness of their perspectives. We know that having a diverse workforce across all levels and within all functions

We’re recognized DEI consultants and trainers who are helping organizations navigate the ever-changing world dynamics.

Select Educational Experiences include:

• Addressing Subtle Acts of Exclusion (Microaggressions) • CONTINEO™ Foundational Virtual DEI training

Proud to be recognized as a Crain’s 2020 Notable Business Championing Diversity.

Contact us to learn more or visit inquestconsulting.com

P022_25_CCB_20210830.indd 22

What’s the biggest challenge your organization faces when seeking to recruit and hire a diverse workforce?

Lewandowski: Our biggest challenge is connecting with a diverse audience. We post openings on a variety of job boards to attract the best talent, rather than relying on one source to bring in prospective candidates.

Because we’re a small organization, it can be a challenge competing with larger organizations looking for the same great talent. We try to separate ourselves in the recruiting process by illuminating our core values, generous benefits, entrepreneurial opportunities and a warm and welcoming experience for all applicants.

Moore-Thompson: Many talented employees and candidates have reset their baseline for what they want from an employer. Societal influences, such as COVID-19, have had a significant impact on the labor market. Feedback from current associates, as well as applicants, suggests that flexibility is a high priority, and they feel—and we

Diversity, equity and inclusion is our business

• Leading Inclusively in Challenging Times

of our organization is important to serving customers in our local communities, attracting extraordinary talent and creating a culture that’s inclusive of differing experiences and perspectives.

How does your organization promote diversity in recruiting employees?

Moore-Thompson: We focus on communicating the robust benefits that job seekers will experience when becoming a part of our organization.

We also have strong relationships with partner organizations that help us access a broad group of diverse talent. We participate in events that attract diverse candidates, recruit through inclusive organizations and diversify our employment advertising to reach talent in local communities.

Our equitable recruiting practices include pursuing diverse interview teams, compelling job descriptions aimed at attracting broad groups of interested candidates, and diversity and inclusion training for all leaders of people. We practice continuous improvement and regularly analyze every step of our recruiting process to ensure that we’re appealing to a broad and diverse group of potential candidates.

Guess: We’re very intentional and strategic. We don’t simply post a job and cross our fingers. We target local diverse professional organizations and university groups to make sure we’re connecting directly with our candidates. We find this more focused approach shows potential

“WE TARGET LOCAL DIVERSE PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS AND UNIVERSITY GROUPS TO MAKE SURE WE’RE CONNECTING DIRECTLY WITH OUR CANDIDATES.” — RHEAANA GUESS, DELTA DENTAL OF ILLINOIS agree—that flexibility has been earned over the last 18 months.

Guess: Recruiting in the western suburbs, where we have our headquarters, and in the insurance industry in general can be a challenge.

Through our DEI work, development programs and benefit offerings, we strive to present candidates a dynamic workplace environment where they can grow and develop. Additionally, we’ve introduced a hybrid/remote work model, which helps attract more diverse talent.

employees that we’re serious about our commitment to recruiting diverse talent, and more efficient yields result.

Lewandowski: We emphasize education and professional skills.

Throughout the interview process, we learn how a candidate wants to add value to our organization, and how we can provide value to their career. We let them know that we invest in our employees by providing them with the tools they need to be successful and promote from within when skills align with an opportunity.

8/26/21 9:29 AM

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important to a diverse population is ever-changing and we’re committed to keeping our finger on the pulse of our employees’ needs.

How do you communicate with your employees about corporate DEI initiatives?

GLORIA COTTON

Senior Partner inQUEST Consulting gloria@inquestconsulting.com 312-268-5831

What efforts do you take to reduce unconscious bias in your hiring practices?

Lewandowski: We use an applicant tracking system to expand our reach of advertisements for open positions. Each candidate is interviewed by a variety of staff levels to help ensure fair and objective decision-making. If we feel a candidate may not be a good fit, we examine why we’ve come to that conclusion and whether it’s a result of our own unconscious bias. This helps us prevent ruling out candidates for reasons other than potentially lacking the required skills for the role.

Cotton: Our hiring teams are diverse in age, gender identity, background, education, experience and more. In all aspects of business, we help each other identify our biases—conscious and unconscious— and challenge ourselves to identify measurable, concrete ways that no one will be negatively impacted by our biases. We don’t try to eliminate bias; that’s impossible and sometimes ill-advised. Our focus is on awareness, choices that align with our values, mission and aspirational brand and an unrelenting commitment that no staff, clients, vendors, potential hires or anyone else will experience anything other than inclusion when they meet, interact and/or work together face-to-face, virtually, on the phone and in writing.

Moore-Thompson: Our behaviorbased interview process promotes a consistent approach to interviewing.

We also pursue diverse interviewer

RHEAANA GUESS

VP, People & Diversity Officer Delta Dental of Illinois rguess@deltadentalil.com 630-718-4700

panels and require calibration conversations to review all eligible applicants for an open position.

We require our leaders to complete diversity training on topics such as unconscious bias in hiring, and all new leaders participate in a program that focuses on ensuring objectivity in the hiring process. We’ve also brought in external experts to share best practices and provide additional insights to help associates and leaders ensure that DEI stays top of mind during hiring and beyond.

What role can benefit packages play in attracting and retaining diverse candidates and employees?

Moore-Thompson: Having a robust and unique benefits package can attract a broad group of candidates. For example, we know that women and minorities were disproportionally affected by the impact COVID-19 had on the job market, and a large group of people voluntarily left their jobs in pursuit of something different. As these groups are looking to re-enter the workforce or find a new opportunity, they desire benefits beyond what typically comes to mind. Recently we’ve heard an increase in questions surrounding flexible work locations and hours; physical, emotional, financial and social wellbeing support; work/life balance; stress reduction and personal time off expectations. We have competitive benefit offerings, and are always looking to be flexible and align our offerings to support the needs of all employees.

“EMPLOYEES APPRECIATE WORKING WITH ORGANIZATIONS THAT BOTH SHOW AND TELL HOW MUCH THEY VALUE, APPRECIATE AND NEED THEM BY PROVIDING HELP WITH PHYSICAL, EMOTIONAL AND MENTAL HEALTH.” — GLORIA COTTON, INQUEST CONSULTING

P022_25_CCB_20210830.indd 23

SAMANTHA LEWANDOWSKI

Human Resources Coordinator TAWANI Enterprises samantha.lewandowski@tawani.net 312-374-9455

Lewandowski: In creating an attractive benefits package, it’s important to keep in mind that each employee has unique needs. While TAWANI is a smaller organization, we’ve focused our benefits on how we can help staff of all levels feel comfortable and in doing so, we hear from candidates and employees that our offerings help us stand out.

Cotton: Employees appreciate working with organizations that both show and tell how much they value, appreciate and need them by providing help with physical, emotional and mental health. Benefits help current employees as well as potential hires better understand the

PAMELA MOORE-THOMPSON VP - Talent Strategies & Organizational Effectiveness UScellular pamela.moore-thompson @uscellular.com 773-399-8929

real culture of an organization—for example, how they treat employees after the interview, whether they live up to the promises made, whether the real needs of families are covered, or if they’ve chosen to provide the minimal amount of coverage and assistance just to say they offer it?

Often the decision to join a company is heavily influenced by the answers to those questions.

Guess: Because we think it’s critical to spend our resources on what our people actually want and need, we make an effort to engage employees and use their feedback to identify the benefits that are most important to them. We recognize that what’s

Moore-Thompson: We weave a consistent flow of DEI content into our communications to keep it top of mind for associates. We encourage leaders to proactively share and advocate for DEI initiatives and offer space for associates to participate; this starts with our CEO who’s made DEI efforts a priority across the company. We encourage peer-topeer communication, and we support our associate resource groups taking the lead on communicating their perspectives, concerns and initiatives broadly across the company. We also have an internal communications channel where associates can freely share their ideas and thoughts in a safe space.

Cotton: We have conversations with our team about DEI, the alignments with our values, mission and short- and long-term strategic goals. Team members are asked for evidence or examples of where we’re demonstrating our commitment, how we can improve, what we may be missing, opportunities and challenges they have as well as their perception of challenges and remedies. Everyone has the opportunity to contribute, question, challenge and recommend.

While different people lead different

EMBRACING DIVERSITY. FOSTERING DIALOGUE. From the oral health care access we provide to the people we employ, invest in and support, Delta Dental of Illinois is committed to diversity, equity and inclusion.

8/26/21 9:29 AM

DIVERSITY IN RECRUITING AND HIRING

PROGRAMS AND STRATEGIES THAT WORK aspects and projects, everyone is responsible and accountable for creating a culture where DEI is invited, respected and leveraged.

What role does training play in your organization’s DEI efforts?

Lewandowski: Within the last year or two, most of our trainings have taken place using our learning management software, rather than in person. Training in this way allows us to track progress and completion and provide opportunities for check-point quizzes with questions surrounding the content being presented. For example, our most recent companywide training focused on the topics of sexual harassment and discrimination in the workplace. Within the training, there were opportunities to read through a scenario and select the correct response on how to handle reporting harassment or what’s considered discrimination in the workplace, and what the appropriate steps are to remediate.

Moore-Thompson: We’ve prioritized company-wide DEI training for leaders and associates.

By having dedicated training, we can engage all associates to reflect on their own thoughts and actions and be more mindful of inclusive behaviors in their day-to-day. All leaders have required diversity training that addresses potential bias in hiring, and we have several optional trainings that are available to all associates.

Beyond formal learning, our associate resource groups regularly provide educational opportunities through guest speakers, special events, webinars and informal discussions.

Guess: Training plays a key role in our DEI work. We’re not only focusing on training and what makes an inclusive culture, but also engaging employees on what we do well, where we may fall short and how we can best support them. We’ve amped up training on inclusive leadership skills, engaging and facilitating two-way communication and identifying unconscious biases in not only hiring, but also ongoing employee engagement. We also offer lunch and learns and other informal sessions for employees to share and learn, and we have a DEI-specific internal channel on our employee Intranet with resources, including training materials.

Cotton: Our three areas of focus when engaging with our clients are strategy and structure, education and experiences, and bridges and breakthroughs. We’re mindful to continue growing our own individual and collective professional abilities so that we can serve our client partners

How do you ensure that long-tenured employees feel included and that DEI is about them as well as new hires?

Guess: We’re intentional in involving all employees in our DEI

“EMPLOYEES NEED TO KNOW THAT THEIR VOICES ARE HEARD AND THAT THEY CAN BE CANDID IN SHARING THEIR THOUGHTS AND OPINIONS.” — PAMELA MOORE-THOMPSON, USCELLULAR with information, processes and more that are not only cutting-edge but also culturally transformative. We also invest and share resources that cultivate and strengthen our team professionally and personally. It’s a real benefit to work with people where the reality of safety—physically, emotionally, intellectually, mentally and spiritually—is important.

efforts. We have a DEI team made up of employees in different departments at different levels with different tenures. We communicate our DEI efforts in our monthly internal newsletter and more frequently as needed. We offer opportunities for professional development and growth to ensure that all employees are engaged.

Lewandowski: Long-tenured employees as well as new hires are encouraged to participate in required initiatives and trainings.

We want everyone to have the same information and knowledge about our inclusive policies, and the awareness and tools that create a more understanding and welcoming environment.

Moore-Thompson: While DEI initiatives have always been a priority, in 2019, we launched a year-long inclusion campaign to optimize our diverse talents and foster a more inclusive organization.

An important element is an annual week-long summit composed of sessions dedicated to creating greater understanding of our company’s DEI strategy, supporting individual growth and promoting engagement with our associate resource groups.

How do you address workplace violations of social justice?

TAWANI Enterprises is committed to equality, inclusion and diversity. We believe that all people should be accepted for who they are, that all abilities should be valued, and all voices heard.

P022_25_CCB_20210830.indd 24

Cotton: We keep it 100% real by talking about it. We don’t avoid any topic or event. We practice and continuously build our skill, even when it’s uncomfortable. It’s important that we all know we can talk about scary things without being scared to do so. We ask about impacts on our team members, people they know or don’t know but to which they belong, have affinity for, or are aligned with. We talk about our feelings. We also talk about what we

can do individually and as a firm to ensure that we all experience safety when working with each other and our client partners. We inquire about suggestions for how and what we can do that demonstrates and is aligned with our organizational values, mission, vision and brand. We speak about what we can and cannot do, what we can support and how.

How can organizations prevent DEI fatigue?

Guess: The best way is to find the joy in diversity and inclusion. People are more likely to put in hard work when there’s a reward at the end.

It’s critical to weave joy into DEI work, otherwise everyone grows weary. Explore art, food, dance, theater and music. Make space for celebration of difference through enjoying commonality. This is when true engagement and understanding occurs and that’s when real progress happens.

Cotton: Pay attention to and invest in self-care physically, emotionally, intellectually, psychologically and spiritually. When needed, ask for and mentor each other, encourage and celebrate by taking time away from work and relaxing. Be creative in ways that may or may not result in workrelated products and services, such as spending time with family or friends.

Moore-Thompson: Employees need to know that their voices are heard and that they can be candid in sharing their thoughts and opinions.

The conversations can’t all be “top down” because at some point the words become hollow or feel robotic.

Our associate resource groups are volunteer, company-supported and associate-driven, drawn together by common purpose and commitment to being a resource for our associates and the organization. By actively engaging our associates and having them take ownership of DEI initiatives, we’ve found increased empowerment and pride.

What advice do you have for organizations looking to measure the success of their DEI efforts?

Guess: Be realistic. Understand that you didn’t get here overnight.

Broaden your definition of success.

While recruiting, retaining and promoting diverse talent is a critical goal, be inclusive about your wins.

Most companies are structured like a pyramid and there’s simply not room for everyone at the top.

When a diverse employee leaves the company for a promotion elsewhere,

8/26/21 9:29 AM

SPONSORED CONTENT

ABOUT THE PANELISTS GLORIA COTTON is a senior partner at InQUEST Consulting, which helps individuals, teams and organizations think, lead and interact inclusively. The self-proclaimed “HR Queen” has more than 25 years of experience working with corporations, unions and notfor-profits. Her expertise includes leadership, unconscious bias, privilege, race, racism and allyship, and she is sought after as an instructional designer, master facilitator and keynote speaker. In 2019, she was featured in Crain’s list of Notable Minorities in Accounting, Consulting & Law.

that should also be considered a success because you’ve prepared an individual to go elsewhere at a higher level. This person will recognize your organization’s contribution and will likely say kind things about you, send you business and who knows, maybe even return to your organization.

Moore-Thompson: Set goals and targets, develop strategies to achieve those goals and constantly measure achievement milestones. UScellular participates in several outside surveys and indices that provide impartial feedback and benchmark us against other companies. The feedback is invaluable, because we recognize that

RHEAANA GUESS is a vice president and people and diversity officer at Delta Dental of Illinois, which offers dental benefit programs to Illinois-based companies and individuals. In addition to overseeing the human resources function, she is responsible for DEI initiatives, including trainings and programming, employee affinity groups and mentoring programs to foster an inclusive culture that will attract, hire and retain a diverse workforce. A licensed attorney, she has more than 15 years of labor and employment law experience.

SAMANTHA LEWANDOWSKI is the human resources coordinator at TAWANI Enterprises, which provides back-office services to its private equity portfolio of startups, mature innovative companies and not-forprofits. She is responsible for all recruiting and hiring, and also develops individual onboarding plans for new talent to ensure the long-term success of each employee. She keeps abreast of DEI topics and initiatives through continuing education opportunities, with the goal of bringing the best talent to her organization’s diverse portfolio of businesses.

work with, recognize and create safety—and respectfully address exclusion and opportunities for more inclusion with our client partners.

Our client partners also benefit in how we work with them.

Guess: Different perspectives and new ideas and innovations flourish with a diverse workforce. We have a diverse customer base as well as a diverse partner and community base. Having an equally diverse workforce helps us best serve our customers, partners and community. We were proud to be recognized as one of Crain’s 2020 Best Places to Work and our employees are to thank. Acknowledging, learning

“OUR EMPLOYEES ARE DEDICATED AND COME TO WORK EVERY MORNING WITH THEIR BEST FOOT FORWARD, WHICH WE BELIEVE IS LARGELY A RESULT OF THE INCLUSIVE AND DIVERSE ENVIRONMENT WE’VE FOSTERED.” — SAMANTHA LEWANDOWSKI, TAWANI ENTERPRISES working toward being a more inclusive organization is always evolving.

We acknowledge where we may have weaknesses, apply continuous improvement and hold leaders accountable for advancing our goals.

What’s the biggest benefit your organization has experienced by having a diverse workforce?

Cotton: We work better together, understanding DEI in deeper, realworld ways. This helps us understand,

P022_25_CCB_20210830.indd 25

from and appreciating our differences helps us ensure inclusivity at all levels of our enterprise.

Lewandowski: The biggest benefit we’ve experienced is the sense of belongingness that’s been created within our organization. We have a diverse portfolio of businesses, so naturally our workforce has employees from a variety of backgrounds to support each one. Our people are talented and committed to what they do, and the diversity in each team only elevates their ability to problem-

solve and find creative solutions together. In 2020 we were recognized by the Chicago Tribune as being a Top Workplace, an award that’s based on employee satisfaction. In addition, propertymanagement.com named our property management company the best in Chicago two years in row.

We believe these recognitions are due

PAMELA MOORETHOMPSON is vice president of talent strategies and organizational effectiveness at UScellular, the fourth-largest full-service wireless carrier in the United States. She joined the company in 2007 and has held increasingly responsible human resources roles. Currently, she leads teams that optimize the attraction, acquisition, performance and retention of exceptional associates, so they can provide customers with a great wireless experience.

Previously she held human resources roles in the financial services industry.

to our amazing staff. Our employees are dedicated and come to work every morning with their best foot forward, which we believe is largely a result of the inclusive and diverse environment we’ve fostered.

Moore-Thompson: The most significant benefit is increased

trust among our associates, which contributes to improved performance.

Our associates trust that we’ll listen to their perspectives and consider their points of view in our decision making.

This drives our ability to provide a great wireless experience for our diverse customer base and to achieve better business results.

AT USCELLULAR,™ WE’RE COMMITTED TO AN INCLUSIVE CULTURE WHERE OUR DIFFERENCES ARE INVITED IN, EMBRACED AND CELEBRATED. Together, we’re stronger.

8/26/21 9:29 AM

26 August 30, 2021 • CRAIN’S CHICAGO BUSINESS

WEED from Page 3 that left neighborhoods suffering from violence and disinvestment and many of their residents holding arrest or prison records that put them at a lifelong disadvantage economically.

Marijuana is big business that requires deep pockets and attracts interest from far beyond the borders of a single state, making it difficult to control. Other states that followed Illinois into recreational marijuana, such as New Jersey and New York, now face the same challenge.

The licensing rules in Illinois law favored residents who came from disproportionately impacted neighborhoods or whose families had been affected by arrests or convictions for low-level marijuana possession. Cowan qualified as a social equity applicant because of an arrest for minor drug possession while in college more than 20 years ago.

Social justice advocates feared that marijuana companies from out of state would partner with residents who met the “social equity” criteria as a means to get access to a multibillion-dollar market.

“Illinois didn’t write social equity into the law to allow (large outof-state companies) in. They did it to allow people who come from these (disproportionately impacted) neighborhoods to have a shot,” says Jermell Chavis, a Marine veteran from the West Side who had a

perfect score on his application but wasn’t chosen for a license in any of the three lotteries.

PARTNERS

Las Vegas-based Planet 13 is one of a half-dozen operators from out of state that are partners in some of the 185 retail licenses issued in three lotteries. Others include New York-based Ayr Wellness and Florida-based Jushi Holdings, which have already have Illinois locations, as well as newcomers Body & Mind of Vancouver, Los Angeles-based Viola Brands and Fello Cannabis of Galien, Mich.

“They didn’t find me. I found them,” Cowan says of Planet 13. He was already planning to apply for a retail license when he went to Las Vegas for a boxing match two years ago. While he was there, a friend who knew an acquaintance of Planet 13 co-founder Larry Scheffler arranged a tour of the company’s just-opened store near the Las Vegas Strip.

“He asked if we’d ever thought of doing something in Chicago,” Scheffler says of his impromptu meeting with Cowan.

Planet 13 wants to make a splash here, building something akin to its flagship store in its hometown of Las Vegas, which tops 100,000 square feet, with high-tech entertainment including interactive laser displays, LED floors and a graffiti wall.

The company will be looking for a high-traffic location in the Chicago

area, not a blighted neighborhood.

The marijuana industry in Illinois and many other states isn’t conducive to mom-and-pop entrepreneurship. It can easily cost $1 million to win a single license and open a store, and traditional lenders won’t work with cannabis businesses because marijuana remains illegal at the federal level.

“Because Illinois got ahead of federal law, it put applicants in a position to need partners with cash,” acknowledges state Rep. LaShawn Ford, a West Side Democrat, who helped revise the cannabis legislation to get more licenses in the hands of social equity applicants.

Cowan says he probably had enough money to get in the game, even though successful applicants often spend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to complete an application.

“I could have hired an attorney and gotten the application done on my own,” says Cowan, who spent more than a decade as a finance manager at car dealerships, earning six figures a year.

“But even if I won, then what do I do? I needed a partner. Leasing a location, dealing with insurance, security, building out a store. We’d need a lot of funds up front. A lot of people don’t realize that.”

PLAN TO SELL

Cowan is 51 percent owner of Planet 13 Illinois, which won the li-

ALAMY

Weed partnership highlights complications

Planet 13 wants to make a splash in Chicago, building something akin to its flagship store in Las Vegas. cense. Scheffler says Planet 13 eventually will want to acquire majority control so the company can incorporate the financials into its results.

“It’s got to be fair to him,” he says.

Cowan says he’s in no hurry to sell. “I plan to have some type of part in Planet 13. I want to make sure we have representation in an industry that has little minority representation.”

He grew up in south suburban Matteson but had friends and family in Bronzeville, where he was arrested for marijuana possession as a teen. Cowan acknowledges the irony that his dream of getting into the marijuana business was made possible by “the thing I was running away from.”

The Illinois law legalizing recre-

ational marijuana also included expunging records of those who had been arrested for marijuana possession. By the time Cowan applied for a license, he had gotten his marijuana arrest expunged in order to make the switch from selling cars to mortgages.

“I’d completely done a 180 in life,” he says. “By the time social equity came out, I didn’t own the stigma of a cannabis arrest anymore because I no longer had it on my record.”

The stigma was nonetheless real.

“I’ll argue that point with anybody,” he says. “Just because I was able to prosper didn’t mean it didn’t hinder me, that I didn’t have to talk my way out of it. I made myself successful. I don’t feel guilty. I had just as rough a time obtaining a job as anyone else.”

Will the private sector rescue Chicago Head Start programs?

HEAD START from Page 3 education, a vital intervention that can set vulnerable youth down a path of success. Though the YMCA is building a case to appeal to more private actors, experts say that convincing foundations or corporations will be an uphill battle and that they can’t make up the level of lost funding.

“The plea to the private sector right now is to create jobs on the South and West sides of Chicago.

Put a call center there like Discover did. Open up your new locations there . . . but what about child care?” said YMCA CEO Dorri McWhorter.

“We’re not treating child care as an economic development mechanism, and that just floors me.”

McWhorter, who took over as the YMCA’s top executive this month, emphasized the connection between economic recovery and affordable child care, a need that both supports impoverished parents trying to improve their circumstances and creates employment opportunities in the communities where they’re anchored. Had the YMCA shut down its Head Start programs, about 150 employees, many of whom are women of color, would have faced layoffs.

Head Start, a national program started in 1965 by President Lyndon Johnson, provides full-day learning, development, mental health and nutritional services to low-income children between ages 3 and 5. It was later expanded for children under 3 through Early Head Start.

The idea of private interven-

P026_CCB_20210830.indd 26

tion in Head Start isn’t wholly unprecedented. One example comes from Michigan, where 10 foundations—including the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the Kresge Foundation—banded together to support ailing Head Start providers when the city and surrounding counties went through a similar restructuring. The collaborative effort, which resulted in the Head Start Innovation Fund, has provided about $8 million to community-based organizations through five rounds of grants and other resources since its creation in 2014.

But that’s still a fraction of the federal money that flows to Chicago’s providers, which amounted to about $145 million this year. And the most challenging aspect of pivoting to private contributions is the need to secure consistent and repeated funding so providers can plan appropriately, said Lauri Morrison-­ Frichtl, executive director of the Illinois Head Start Association. Donors typically prefer to fund isolated services that don’t require annual continuations, she said.

“When you’re running and managing an organization, you need to have a commitment beyond one year because you can’t hire staff and roll the dice that you are going to lose all that,” she said. “You have a lot of contracts you sign . . . that’s really hard to do unless you have a long-term commitment from a philanthropic agency.”

Mae Hong, a vice president in the Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors’ Chicago office, said private foundations are typically hesitant

to replace lost government funding because they can’t come close to filling the gap left behind. She added that foundations also consider it a “moral hazard” to take on projects that are so clearly government responsibilities, though they do support early childhood education through other avenues.

STANDARDS

In Chicago, the funding overhaul was triggered because several providers failed to meet federal standards, leading to some situations that harmed children. In perhaps the most notorious incident, a child with disabilities was left on a bus in winter 2019 for so long that he developed frostbite. In the past, the city of Chicago’s Office of Family & Support Services received all the federal funding, distributed the money to 40 providers running programs and was charged with monitoring quality.

Deputy Commissioner Cerathel Burgess-­Burnett, who oversees the city’s Head Start programs, didn’t respond to multiple requests for an interview.

Under the new system, Chicago’s responsibility and share of funding is significantly reduced.

The city received just under 36% of the total award, or $51.8 million, and will monitor only 14 providers. The rest of the money, about $93.4 million, goes directly to five community-based organizations that were selected in a competitive bidding process. Those organizations run their own programs but also disburse money to other pro-

viders, which they must oversee.

This type of restructuring—which previously occurred in other big cities, including Seattle, Los Angeles and New York—is intended to increase accountability and improve program quality.

The reshuffling, however, means that some organizations with no history of violations completely lost out on funding. Two such groups, the Hana Center in Albany Park and It Takes a Village Family of Schools in West Humboldt Park, said the city had few answers about why they won’t get Head Start money this year other than explaining that other organizations were already operating nearby and that it needed to be more discerning because its allocation shrank.

Danae Kovac, deputy director of operations at the Hana Center, said her organization had been receiving $380,000 for Head Start and Early Head Start programs, which allowed it to serve about 70 children in all its preschool programs.

Without that money, which made up about 35% of its budget for early childhood education, the center couldn’t sustain any of its preschool programs and shut them down them last week. To keep the programs running, the Hana Center would have needed to raise up to $100,000 in unrestricted cash, which was not feasible for an organization of its size, Kovac said.

“We did not come forward with the decision to close lightly,” Kovac said. “There have been many sleepless hours and nights and advocacy at every level.”

Danae Kovac of the Hana Center says it had to shut down its preschool programs last week.

Many children that received services from the Hana Center are being referred to another provider in Albany Park, but the programs won’t be the same. The Hana Center’s curriculum was tailored to the large immigrant community it supports and included Korean and Spanish interpreters in every classroom.

It Takes A Village Family of Schools is still considering its options, said CEO Nakisha Hobbs.

The nonprofit serves 450 children eligible for Head Start and received $3 million to do so in previous years. Hobbs said her funding was extended through Sept. 30, but it will be cut after that.

And, unlike the YMCA, It Takes A Village doesn’t have deep pockets.

“We are a small, community-based organization,” Hobbs said.

“We don’t have a large, powerful board, and so we are continuing to fight and want to really amplify our voices to say, ‘You don’t treat communities and children and families and early childhood educators in this way.’ ”

8/27/21 4:26 PM

CRAIN’S CHICAGO BUSINESS • August 30, 2021 27

In North Barrington, a house so nice they built it twice VHT STUDIOS PHOTOS

Built in 1949, the house was rebuilt in 1967 after a tornado. The family that has owned the wood, stone and glass home for 63 years is putting it up for sale at $595,000. BY DENNIS RODKIN AT THE MODERN HOME in North Barrington they bought in 1958, Anne and Earl Johnson raised three children and many bushels of organic produce.

They even raised the house in a sense, rebuilding it after a devastating 1967 tornado.

While living in a trailer on the site with their kids, the Johnsons called the original builder, Don Tosi, back to the site to put back the wood and stone walls, the tall living room windows and the distinctive upward flare of the roof as he had designed and built them in 1949 for a previous owner.

It’s a house so nice, it was built twice. The Johnsons lived out their lives: Earl, a consultant in the health care industry, died in 2005, and Anne, who operated the Knitters Nook yarn store in downtown Barrington for more than 20 years, died in 2012. Their three children have kept the house in the years since but now are putting it up for sale. This will be only the second time the house has been on the market since it was built 72 years ago.

Set on 7 acres on Kimberly Road 40 miles northwest of the Loop, the four-bedroom, 2,400-square-foot house came on the market last week. Priced at $595,000, it’s represented by Lou Zucaro of Baird & Warner.

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Vol. 44, No. 35 – Crain’s Chicago Business (ISSN 0149-6956) is published weekly, except for the last week in December, at 150 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL 60601-3806. $3.50 a copy, $169 a year. Outside the United States, add $50 a year for surface mail. Periodicals postage paid at Chicago, Ill. Postmaster: Send address changes to Crain’s Chicago Business, PO Box 433282, Palm Coast, FL 32143-9688. Four weeks’ notice required for change of address. © Entire contents copyright 2021 by Crain Communications Inc. All rights reserved.

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