Ribbon Cutting Set for New Opportunity Center

Press Release

A Ribbon Cutting Ceremony including an open house, food, and tours of the building will take place on Thursday, March 31st at 11 am at The Opportunity Center!  The new facility is located at 8570 Rivers Avenue in North Charleston. Officials from the involved charitable organizations as well as other dignitaries will be on hand to answer questions and help demonstrate the impact the facility will have on the region. This will include more information about the charitable organizations involved as well as the U. S. Small Business Administration’s Women’s Business Center which will call The Opportunity Center home.  

Four South Carolina based charitable organizations last year announced their partnership in creating and operating a new concept for non-profit led economic development, this innovative concept was developed into The Opportunity Center.  The four non-profit partner agencies have combined experience of 75 years of working in the community economic development field.  The Center for Heirs’ Property Preservation™, Increasing H.O.P.E., Homes of Hope, and the S.C. Association for Community Economic Development will be using The Opportunity Center not only as their headquarters, but as a training center and a business incubator all under one roof.  

Buoyed by a $2.7 million grant awarded from the Economic Development Administration (EDA) to Homes of Hope, Inc. in May of2019, the former 31,250 square-foot furniture store in North Charleston has undergone the transformation into The Opportunity Center.  In addition to the $2.7 million EDA grant, the Coastal Community Foundation (CCF) has provided an $800,000 equity investment from CCF’s Place-Based Impact Investing fund. Other contributing partners include Sisters of Charity Equity, Gilder Gagnon Howe & Co., Equity Partners, Wells Fargo, Truist Bank, South State Bank, City of North Charleston, PNC, Rhodes/Lee Foundation, Patrick Family Foundation, and Gene & Doris Hunley.  

“It’s so gratifying to see the vision of The Opportunity Center become reality,” said Dr. Jennie L. Stephens, CEO of the Center for Heirs’ Property Preservation™, a Charleston-based nonprofit that helps families and individuals protect their inherited land.  “Economic development isn’t just for for-profit institutions; The Opportunity Center is a unique collaborative place impacting low-wealth communities of the Tri-County and surrounding areas.  This innovative space will provide job training, a business incubator and entrepreneurial shared space – as well as a Women’s Business Center, while maintaining offices of local non-profits actively working in the community economic development sector.  It’s so gratifying to see the vision of The Opportunity Center become reality.”  

The unique and critical component of The Opportunity Center are the business incubator program known as the Business Success Center and the Women’s Business Center.  Defined as an entrepreneurial ecosystem builder, these programs will focus on helping small business owners and entrepreneurs establish, grow, and sustain their operations—especially for communities of color and women.  Historically, entrepreneurs of color and women have faced challenges establishing, growing, and sustaining their enterprises for a variety of reasons, including lack of access to affordable capital, accessing key markets, navigating regulations, and accessing networks that have historically helped white-owned businesses to prosper. At the end of 2019, just 11.9% of persons of color in South Carolina owned a business compared to 20% of the white population. 

Compounding the issue is the fact that COVID19 has caused record-setting numbers of small businesses to close, with many studies pointing to a disproportionate number of those businesses being owned by people of color. A recent study cited by the Washington Post (May 25, 2020) indicated that “African American Business owners plummeted by 40% as coronavirus shut down the economy…a much steeper drop than any other ethnic group.” 

This business incubator collaborative will also provide flexible space for entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, and remote employees.  The facility is expected to help create 45 jobs and attract nearly $4 million in private investment.   

The Center for Heirs’ Property Preservation has been protecting heirs’ property through legal education and direct legal services since 2005. In 2013, the Center began promoting the sustainable use of land through forestry education and services to provide increased economic benefit to low-wealth family landowners. The Center provides legal services and forestry services in 22 counties in South Carolina.

To date, the Center has provided 3,569 persons with free, one-hour “Advice and Counsel” (A&C) with 955 clients receiving direct legal services to clear title. A total of 1,418 simple wills have been drafted at free, community Wills Clinics; more than 503 families (who collectively own in excess of 40,000 acres) have benefited from various levels of education and expert resources to develop and implement sustainable forestry management plans, and 301 titles have been cleared on family land with a total tax-assessed value of $17.3 million. 

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