The city of Aurora capped off its month-long celebration of Black History Month with a special ribbon-cutting event at Fox Valley Mall Saturday which welcomed six Black-owned businesses to the Aurora shopping center.
Beginning at 10 a.m., city officials, mall executives and supporters gathered at the mall’s Center Park for a ceremony which included remarks from each owner, followed by awards and certificates and a ceremonial ribbon-cutting at the entry of each business.
Aurora Chief Communications and Equity Officer Clayton Muhammad spoke about the collective ribbon- cutting event, noting that the city “was looking forward to closing out Black History Month in a substantive way that matters and a celebration of Black businesses.”
“There was a piece on the news recently about the increase of Black-owned businesses throughout Chicagoland during the pandemic and we’ve seen reflection of that in Aurora, particularly at the Fox Valley Mall,” Muhammad said. “We’re happy to celebrate with Aurora and encouraging the city to always focus on our small businesses. We support them throughout the year, as they are the lifeblood of this community and all communities.”
Fox Valley Mall General Manager Scott Samson is excited about the new additions at the shopping center.
“When you’re a super-regional mall like this with over 120 shops, in this day and age, it’s important to reflect the community that you serve and we do have a very robust local leasing program. Almost 40 shops and eateries are owned by local entrepreneurs including Black-owned businesses,” he said. “We have curated this collection of local retailers, and it’s offered a freshness and diversity that I think has enhanced the shopper experience and it may be why we recovered better than most malls after the pandemic.”
Muhammad praised the work of officials at Fox Valley Mall calling it “transformative” saying they were “extremely focused on equity and inclusion and the opportunity.”
“Part of the work of Scott Samson and the owners of the mall, part of that is to make certain business ownership is accessible and having that storefront space. Over the past several years, we’ve seen that growth of Black-owned space and minority-owned businesses at the mall,” said Muhammad.
To that end, city officials recognized that a number of businesses run by Black owners were coming on board, which Muhammad said created an opportunity to have a mass ribbon-cutting ceremony to close out the month, rather than doing them individually.
“We did like 70-plus ribbon-cuttings last year, but we really wanted to make this special,” he said. “The base of this, really, is the focus and commitment of Fox Valley Mall and helping community members with their business ownership dreams.”
Businesses honored included Family Means Forever (clothing and fashion); Laptops Sales & Repair (computers); New Drip Boutique and Nine6teen Boutique (women’s clothing); Signature Cuts (unisex hair salon); and Thingamajigg (a virtual game room).
Isimaila Adakola of Aurora, who will run the laptop service, said he has been in the business “since 2007 and was selling online.”
“Last year with the pandemic, sales of laptops online were huge as people were home more and I saw an opportunity for me – what else can I do? I can do repairs, I can do programs and that’s why I decided to open a laptop business and help my community also,” Adakola said. “I’m here because I want to take advantage of people who are coming to the mall for the shopping and more foot traffic.”
Another shop owner, Whitney Crenshaw of Montgomery, who will operate Nine6teen Boutique at the mall, said this was her first venture with a storefront after having some pop-ups where she received a lot of positive feedback.
“I wanted to open up a women’s shopping store because I like to shop and I couldn’t find anything around here other than going all the way to Chicago for clothing stores or shopping online,” she said. “I wanted to open something for the women that like to shop and be able to come and get nice clothes. I did a pop-up shop last year and did really well and got good feedback. They (customers) also said they were looking for local clothing stores and I decided to reach out to local management here and get a spot. I really appreciate what they are doing here today. It helps small Black businesses like ours get exposure in the mall.”
Mayor Richard Irvin said the city “is always happy to have a ribbon-cutting for new businesses in the city of Aurora” as well as “being elated with them being minority businesses.”
He said as Aurora gets more “Black and Latino businesses to open – and take leadership roles in our city – I’m pleased to be here supporting our businesses and making sure we cut more and more ribbons for businesses in the city of Aurora.”
David Sharos is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.