JumpStart announces three-year, $750K commitment to CentroVilla25 initiative

CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS

Venture development organization JumpStart is teaming with the Northeast Ohio Hispanic Center for Economic Development (NEOHCED) to support the Latino/Hispanic business community through a commitment to the CentroVilla25 initiative.

JumpStart on Tuesday, Feb. 7, announced in a news release that its board of directors approved a three-year, $750,000 commitment to the NEOHCED-led CentroVilla25 “to accelerate meaningful economic growth in the Clark Fulton neighborhood.” CentroVilla25 is a $10 million project to transform the former H.J. Weber building, a vacant 32,500-square-foot warehouse at 3140 West 25th St., into a Latino marketplace.

Jenice Contreras, executive director of the NEOHDEC, said in a statement that JumpStart’s commitment to the CentroVilla25 initiative “is a vital step in addressing the resource gap faced by Latino-owned small businesses in the Clark Fulton neighborhood.”

She said the support “will accelerate meaningful economic growth and empower entrepreneurs to transform Northeast Ohio. This will have a positive economic impact on the region, not just for the Latino-Hispanic community, but for everyone.”

A JumpStart official in an email noted that the organization’s commitment includes a $250,000 contribution to project construction and “programmatic support to accelerate the outcomes of Latino/Hispanic business owners in Clark-Fulton and throughout Cleveland.”

When construction is complete, the email stated, JumpStart “will deliver bilingual programs and services in partnership with NEOHCED through the business innovation center — located within CentroVilla25 — to bridge resource gaps and bring place-based business assistance into the Clark-Fulton community.”

Lamont Mackley, JumpStart’s chief inclusion and outreach officer, said in a statement that JumpStart’s mission is to “unlock the power of entrepreneurship to transform Northeast Ohio, but this work can’t be achieved as long as there are pockets of our community disconnected from business capital, services and connections.”

To maximize the funding and bring greater impact, JumpStart and NEOHCED said they are encouraging other organizations “to meet, match or exceed JumpStart’s commitment” through a community match challenge.