Elizabeth Davidson of Kresge’s Social Investment Practice recently visited Edmondson Village Shopping Center in Baltimore, the first acquisition of the TREND Fund. She spoke with us about why Kresge invested, how the deal was built and what she found on the ground.

Chicago TREND was founded in 2016 as a certified benefit corporation, launched with support from the MacArthur Foundation and the Chicago Community Trust. Its early work was analytical: using market data and predictive modeling to identify neighborhoods on the cusp of change, then supplying the pro forma development services, transaction facilitation and deal structuring that community-driven retail projects typically lack.

Along the way the firm kept finding the same thing: a pipeline of projects that never reached their potential, not for want of demand but due to lack of development capacity, predevelopment capital and retailer relationships. TREND then moved from advising to owning. Through its affiliated nonprofit, Trend CDC, it partnered with the Chicago Community Loan Fund to finance the acquisition and redevelopment of nine shopping centers by local Black developers, a program successful enough to raise another $10 million for a second cohort.

A $500,000 investment from Living Cities, partially funded by Kresge, let TREND acquire two centers outright. At Wallbrook Junction in Baltimore, it went further still, bringing local residents onto the cap table alongside it.

Q: What drew Kresge to TREND? What problem was this investment trying to solve?

A: Commercial real estate ownership in the U.S. keeps consolidating under private owners with no connection to the neighborhoods they hold. Roughly 1.5% of real estate assets under management are controlled by minority-owned firms, and only about 2% of development firms are Black-led. The consequence is extractive: residents’ shopping dollars flow out of the community, and community-driven retail projects stall.

The other half of the problem is the corridors themselves. Neighborhood commercial districts are infrastructure, alongside housing. They’re what makes a place livable, supplying the groceries, care, and services residents need within reach. When they decline, the cost falls hardest on households that are transportation-constrained or already face barriers to accessing the goods and services they need. Strengthening those corridors and restoring the amenities that anchor them was as central to this investment as the ownership question, and it’s why the Fund targets service-oriented centers.

Existing tools weren’t solving either problem. Debt products financed buildings but left ownership (and the wealth and governance that come with it) untouched. Conventional value-add equity underwrites rents that price out local entrepreneurs and workforce shoppers. TREND put residents on the cap table rather than treating them as an impact narrative, which is why the deal sits squarely inside the Health Team’s Community Investment for Health Equity strategy and became Kresge’s inaugural community ownership model of real estate (COMR/E) investment.

Q: How did Kresge structure the deal to solve for that?

A: Kresge made a $2 million program-related equity investment, taking a limited partner position with a voting seat on the fund board. After the initial return of funds, we split remaining cash flow with community investors and the general partner. Residents buy in at $1,000 increments, with a projected 16% annual cash return. A supporting grant to Trend CDC funds the community engagement and advisory-board infrastructure the ownership model depends on.

Q: What did the site look like when Kresge first underwrote the deal vs. now?

A: Edmondson Village opened in 1947 as one of Baltimore’s first major retail destinations. Over the past 30 years, demographic shifts and disinvestment led to property decline, with many storefronts closed. TREND stepped in to restore the center as a community asset, acquiring it alongside 200 community investors. At this point, ten leases have since been signed, including a national grocery chain, primary care, child care and food retail. Phase 1 improvements (roof, awnings, lighting, signage, and removal of old security gates) are complete, and Phase 2 (site work, utilities, sidewalks, grocery store foundation) is 70% finished. Meals on Wheels of Central Maryland is also in predevelopment on a 34,000-square-foot headquarters that will bring more than 100 jobs to the site. In March, 250 people including investors, retailers, neighbors, Maryland Governor Wes Moore and other elected officials gathered onsite to celebrate these construction and leasing milestones.

Q: Did you hear any community feedback about the project?

A: On our way back from visiting Edmondson, we started chatting with our Uber driver, who observed that the center used to be “almost abandoned.” He had heard the community invested in it, and he was thrilled to see it becoming a vibrant, safe space again. That’s the part due diligence doesn’t capture.

Q: What has to be true for this model to scale?

A: We need more investors, and local partners willing to bring subsidized capital to close funding gaps. Our capital was always meant to be replaceable. We took a below-market preferred return and structured the transaction to become eligible for consideration as a mission-related investment once the model proves up; indications are that a 7% to 8% hurdle would be sufficient for institutional capital. Getting there means stabilizing assets, paying the preferred return on schedule and showing that community ownership doesn’t impair asset performance or complicate financing.