SPRINGFIELD – Dominic Watson spends most mornings to afternoons at CAP 1908, working with Rosalind Bond, Nate Robinson and Tawahn Armstrong on creating a new structure for success when it comes to east side citizens.
Watson, the executive director of the Springfield Project and also sits as president of the Black Chamber of Commerce, has his hands full working on the business incubator at 1100 S. Grand. Ave. E., turning the 30,000-square-foot site into offices and an instructional kitchen.
But it’ll take his hands and countless others to take on an even larger project – creating a large-scale outdoor community eatery space on the east side.
“During our conversations with the mayor and Ald. Gregory, essentially the expectations are to do all the work we do around business development in the Southtown neighborhood,” Watson said. “The additional task that we will incorporate into our existing work is identifying an opportunity for an outdoor food court.”
On May 19, the Springfield City Council voted and approved a contract with the Springfield Project, a nonprofit community development corporation overseeing CAP 1908 and other redevelopment projects, to support a comprehensive and cohesive strategic plan for the development of the Southtown neighborhood on the east side.
The ordinance was proposed by Ald. Gregory and will supply the Springfield Project with $250,000 total until Feb. 28, 2028.
What would the development look like?
The outdoor food court would be known as the Southtown Levee and include new concepts, new faces and excited business owners having their first attempt at making their mark on the Springfield food scene.
The Madison Cooperative Culinary space still being renovated at 1104 South Grand Ave. which will give access for kitchen cooks to use professional videography, audio and podcast equipment to shoot videos for social media and take cooking classes as part.
Once finished, graduated entrepreneurs through the program will have an opportunity Watson says to open their first restaurant location at the new food court Gregory envisions.
“The early work that we’ve done with CAP 1908 has been around, how do we take those cottage kitchen entrepreneurs and give them the infrastructure to scale their business out of their kitchen? We want to incubate them and accelerate them … we’ve over the course of the past three and a half years met with over 40 entrepreneurs who are looking to advance.”
Gregory pictures an outdoor entertainment space, creating an early-stage mock-up rendering with seating surrounded by six to eight outdoor food vendor spaces and a section for food trucks. Watson has toyed around with the different types of buildings the restaurants could use including box cars, similar to The Railyard on Route 66.
Gregory has previously stated before his intent to see a new hub for east side commerce and food courts and said he appreciates The Springfield Project for targeting businesses and showing that the community can put this together themselves.
The project is still in its infancy according to Watson, who is still site searching and has identified several lots for potential use. The team is working with the SIU Office of Community Engagement who are partners with The Springfield Project.
Watson has already confirmed a Project Labor Agreement will be attached to the project.
Watson plans The Springfield Project to hold their first open house later this summer to meet and learn from already established businesses how to not detract traffic from brick-and-mortar but add value to them through the vendor space.
What is CAP 1908?
CAP, or the Community Access Project, is a large-scale structure project to address redevelopment on the east side of the city through financial literacy, access to equipment and business services.
The project falls into three phases, with the first being the creation of the coworking center offering rentable offices and access to computers for career readiness programs and partner display workshops; the second phase will build out the culinary incubator, and the third phase focuses on building a performing arts center.
After buying their flagship building in 2022 with allocated city funding and donations from Molina Healthcare, in March of 2024, The Springfield Project received a $500,000 allocation from the Springfield City Council from the Far East Tax Increment Financing District to develop the Madison Furniture building at 1104 South Grand Ave., the kitty corner theater.
Until the culinary kitchen is ready to house classes, The Springfield Project is gearing up to host CAPWorks in the meantime, a pre-apprenticeship program funded by Illinois Works under the Illinois Department of Commerce.
The 10-week summer cohort program starting by the end of June is free of cost and trains for electrical, plumbing, general construction, concrete, roofing and painting with a pathway to registered apprenticeship programs.
Watson says he’s excited to get the ball rolling and the class is a prime example of what The Springfield Project does; a lack of apprenticeship programs was made clear to him in the community, so CAP set out to fill the gap.
More information about CAPWorks and other business incubator programs can be found on thespringfieldproject.org.
Claire Grant writes about business, growth and development and other news topics for The State Journal-Register. She can be reached at CLGrant@usatodayco.com; and on X (Formerly known as Twitter): @Claire_Granted
This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: New, large-scale outdoor food court in the works on city’s east side
Reporting by Claire Grant, Springfield State Journal-Register / State Journal-Register
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By Claire Grant, Springfield State Journal-Register | USA TODAY Network
