The burnt-out QuikTrip convenience store that became a symbol of racial unrest after a Ferguson police officer killed an unarmed black teenager in August 2014 will soon reopen as a community center focused on job training for African Americans.
The store was looted, burned and spray-painted “R.I.P. Mike Brown” during the unrest following Michael Brown Jr.’s shooting death by then-Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson on August 9, 2014. The QuikTrip Corporation remediated the site and then donated the property, at 9420 W. Florissant Avenue, to the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis.
The Urban League is now putting the final touches on the Community Empowerment Center of Ferguson, which employed minorities for about 75 percent of both the workforce and business contracts on the nearly $4 million project.
“It’s a historic amount of minority inclusion,” said Michael McMillan, president and CEO of the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis. “It shows the fact that when people say they cannot find enough qualified minority companies, you can find them. They do exist, and you can deliver a quality product on time and on budget.”
The Urban League co-owns the building with the Salvation Army, and both will be offering services out of the center. The building is a two-story, 13,500-square-foot facility.
“It was a place where it was almost a black eye to the community, and now it’s a place where people in the community can get help,” said Zachary Hamilton, of Kwame Building Group, who managed the project’s construction. “You have two pretty significant national nonprofits both in the same building.”
Simms Building Group was the main contractor on the project, and most of the subcontractors were small businesses. Kwame, an employee-owned local company, was the construction management group.
“We didn’t have any super big boys on the job,” Hamilton said.
Among the workers and business owners, Hamilton said that he commonly heard that this was the type of project that they would bring their children by to see.
“It’s one of the projects that you’re very proud of, even though it’s not the most complicated or the most expensive project you’ve worked on,” Hamilton said. “It’s because of what it stands for.”
He’s also proud that the project reached the highest amount of minority participation among any project in St. Louis, to his knowledge.
Once completed at the end of the month, the new facility will house the Urban League’s “Save Our Sons” workforce program, which will provide job training and placement services for African Americans and other young men in Ferguson and North St. Louis County.
The Salvation Army will provide help with after school tutoring, financial assistance for rent and utilities, and emotional and spiritual care for individuals reentering society after incarceration, said Lt. Colonel Lonneal Richardson, who was the Salvation Army Midland Divisional commander when the center was conceived. Its Pathway to Hope program, which helps families break free of poverty, will also be part of the center, he said.
“These are just some of the services desperately needed in North St. Louis County,” said Richardson (now commander of women’s ministries for the Salvation Army Northern Division, based in Minneapolis, Minnesota).
In addition to The Salvation Army, the center also will have offices for Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod and University of Missouri-Extension. Provident and Better Family Life plan to hold community events and offer resources there occasionally.
McMillan has said that Michael Johnson, a QuikTrip board director, called him days after the QuikTrip burned asking what they could do. In the Urban League’s conversations with community members, particularly young men, they expressed that they want jobs, McMillan said.
In the Save Our Sons four-week job-training program, participants learn everything from public speaking and team-building to emergency financial preparation and health care.
“This is the first time in 99 years that we had ever built a building,” McMillan said. “We’ve always bought or leased a building. We were purposeful about seeking that property, where the tragic burning is something we hope will turn into a triumphant event and where it will serve the community.”
