Newark’s Lincoln Park Coast Cultural District has launched “LPCCD Green Suite: The Business of Real Estate Development Training Program.” The mission is to create generational wealth in communities of color and provide access to this business sector for Black Indigenious Persons of Color , Persons of Color, and Women of Color who are vastly underrepresented in the real estate development sector. It’s sponsored by the State of New Jersey’s Neighborhood Revitalization Tax Credit Program, through Provident Bank, Valley Bank and Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey.

Program partner Samer Hanini, Managing Partner at Hanini Group states, “We are happy to participate in such an important project. Helping teach other local firms to develop real estate is something we feel is important in creating a pipeline of work for the future of Newark. The city has undergone so many great changes that have preserved and enhanced neighborhoods. We want this momentum sustained.”

LPCCD Green Suite builds upon the foundation laid by Lincoln Park’s “LPCCD Green Cap” initiative, which was one of the nation’s first Green Job Training Programs in 2008-09 which provided a pipeline of entry-level workers for the new jobs that were created as a result of the State’s Energy Master Plan and the New Jersey Clean Plan energy efficient-projects under former Governor Jon Corzine. Anthony Smith, Executive Director, Lincoln Park Coast Cultural District states “Recently, I talked about the challenges of “Developing While Black” on my podcast, and while doing the research, we found that a 2019 study by Harvard Business School and Bella Research identified only 17 women-owned and 21 minority-owned real estate investment firms of 967 firms listed, which is, less than 5% of the industry. LPCCD Green Suite seeks to change that narrative, disrupt gentrification and make a tangible, equitable impact in the community of Newark where there are many cranes in the sky, but a lack of Black real estate developers”.

“LPCCD Green Suite” runs through April 21, 2021.