(WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- Mayor Lori Lightfoot joined community leaders Tuesday morning to announce the latest round of Chicago Recovery Plan grant awards.
More than 100 small businesses, real estate developers and nonprofits now have access to a combined $54 million.
"These 133 projects will build community wealth, spur transit-oriented development and make our city more sustainable and more resilient," Lightfoot said.
The grants are designed to help communities bounce back from the economic hardships of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“This is the closest a nonprofit leader gets to winning an Oscar and what's wonderful is that we all won today,” said Jonathan Pereira, executive director of Plant Chicago, a small nonprofit on the Southwest Side. “My hope now is that today is not the only day that something like this happens, that the city will continue to make bold investments in our future.”
Plant Chicago operates out of a former firehouse in the Back of the Yards neighborhood.
Pereira says their $250,000 grant will go toward making the facility more energy-efficient “by replacing gas-fired space heaters with all electric air source heat pumps and energy.”
Another recipient is the South Shore Chamber of Commerce.
Executive Director Tonya Trice says their grant will go toward a new home along the 71st Street Corridor.
“This 6,000-square-foot building will be home to the Chamber of Commerce and will also create a small business center for our local business owners, which some of you are here today as awardees,” she said. “And we will also create a pop-up kitchen and other retail businesses within the building.”
The grants range from $10,000 to $5.9 million.
It’s the biggest single round of economic development grants the city has ever awarded.
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