May 2, 2019 | Community Spotlight: Richmond Business Hub, a Place for Inclusive Prosperity
Photo credit: Oakstop Richmond
This past week, the City of Richmond, California unveiled its first business hub and food hall, along with four new anchors to their downtown. The Richmond Business Hub features a two-story co-working facility adjoined with the Richmond Food Hall, which will offer an unprecedented mix of modern cuisine, including fourth wave coffee, healthy soul food, and regular pop-ups from local food entrepreneurs. Diversity and inclusion will be the focus of the Richmond Business Hub with Oakstop knitting together the work, food, art, and event platforms to ensure a place for all people, especially those who currently live and work downtown.
Gentrification and cultural disruption are hot topics in Richmond, pitting the benefits of increased economic activity and urban revitalization against displacement of existing communities and their ability to directly access benefits from Richmond’s increased prosperity. To date, the majority of Richmond’s resources have been directed to areas other than downtown’s core to ignite the City’s resurgence. Unfortunately, most of Richmond’s majority minority community has yet to participate in the increased prosperity and related opportunities for wealth creation. The stated mission of the Richmond Business Hub is to make the City’s prosperity inclusive.
Photo credit: Oakstop Richmond
Prosperity should belong to us all. In other words, gentrification should empower the most vulnerable in our emerging neighborhoods instead of displacing communities that have historically anchored urban centers. The launch of the Richmond Business Hub also celebrates the unveiling of the Oakstop Empowerment Network (“OEN”), a collaborative venture between EVI and Oakstop, dedicated to restorative placemaking in urban centers. The many Stakeholders, who made the Richmond Business Hub possible, posit a strategy for increased value creation for existing Richmond residents. This strategy for shared value creation will be central for all the participants and community members who access the space, reinforced by Oakstop, Red Bay Coffee, Roux, and CoBiz.
Originally published on www.richmondmainstreet.org.