Candace Spears
- Oct 23, 2019
- 3 min read

Ep 126: Live in Jersey? Non-profit org? Queen Latifah has space for you

LISTEN!

In this episode, you'll learn...

Giving back is a characteristic we all should posses
What it looks like to be aware of needs
Opportunities for non-profit business owners in Newark

About this Episode:

"U. N. I. T. Y." Do you know that song? You know who that's by. Of course... it's Queen Latifah. She's got her hands into real estate and she's doing a little bit of giving back in her hometown city of Newark. Let's talk about what she's doing, how it should inspire us, and what the opportunity is if you're a nonprofit.

I was surfing the net one afternoon and came across a news article on Shoppe Black that was about Queen Latifah and what she's doing from a real estate perspective. Now, this article came out on February 22nd, 2019. So right now at this point, given us October, it's some months old, but still this year. And I found it fascinating and inspirational all at the same time.

First off, you hear stories of famous people like Queen Latifah and her level of celebrity doing projects all the time that are giving back to their community and helping to just sort of pay it forward. But it was something about this story. I don't know if it's because I have this love for real estate that's starting to come up a little bit more. Maybe because it also has this entrepreneurship opportunity for other people associated with it. I don't know what it was, but I'm inspired by it.

And so I'm just gonna read to you first off, give you a little bit of background. So it's a $14 million real estate project in New Jersey and Queen Latifah is doing this project. Newark is where she is from and where she grew up and that's where the project is going to be. And so according to shop black, the project includes 23 family townhomes and a three-story mixed-use building with an additional 16 units, plans for the building include a fitness center and 1900 square feet of commercial space that will be rented to nonprofits. The 60 units in the townhouses will be market rate and the 16 units in the building will be affordable.

And so in my mind, and I'm putting my real estate investor, future mogul hat on, and I love a few different things about this. First, I love the fact that she's got this mixed-use, both having affordable housing. So from both having affordable housing in one section and then also having a mixing of units that are at just your standard market rate.

So while she's investing in this project, it's not something that is sort of targeted one way or the other. You've got a mix of incomes that are likely floating around in this development one. I think that's awesome. The more diversity, even from an economic background that you can have, I think it's a wonderful opportunity.

Now the other piece that I love is the commercial space. And the fact that the commercial space that she has is targeted at nonprofits. So first off, if you're listening (or reading) and you live in Newark, New Jersey, you probably see this already in motion, and if you didn't know about it or you're thinking about moving to Newark, this might be a good opportunity for you.

So they're looking for nonprofits in particular. And again, I just love the idea that we're saying, "Hey, we're being very intentional" and saying "We want to focus this space and reserve it for people who have decided that their core mission is to serve and to help others and give all that they make to help and serve others."

So I think this should inspire us all together. You know, as Queen Latifah is saying, "Alright, I'm going to give back to my hometown and I'm going to bring in this development. It's going to have an economic mixed up. It's going to have a focus on businesses that serve the nonprofits."

I think it's an opportunity for us to constantly think about how we can give back and we may or may not have Queen Latifah's money yet, but I think there's a lot that we can do right now. And especially as we are entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs looking to make a bigger impact. Part of our bigger impact story, I believe, should be in the way that we give back to our communities or to the experiences that we've been through and people who are in similar situations.

And so let this be a bit of an inspiration to you. And then again, if you are in Newark, and especially if you are a social entrepreneur, you run a social enterprise, you have to have a nonprofit, check out this development. It might be something that you can utilize.