When Chicago Urban Leauge president and CEO Karen Freeman-Wilson’s colleague told her the organization should respond to Walmart’s request for proposals to redevelop its Chatham site, Freeman-Wilson remembers balking at the idea.

“I’m like, ‘That big superstore?’” Freeman-Wilson said.

But what her colleague, Chicago Urban League Vice President Andrew Wells, was referring to was the smaller building next door: The 15,000-square-foot Walmart Academy that the big box retailer used as a training center.

“He went on and on about it,” Freeman-Wilson said. “And then we came and toured the building, and I said, ‘We have to reactivate this building for the community.’”

That’s what the Urban League did on Friday, hosting a ribbon cutting for the organization’s new Empowerment Center. that provid

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