Local News in Brief : City Loans for Leases
The city Community Development Department will loan $2 million at low interest rates to black-owned businesses to help them lease space in the $120-million Baldwin Hills-Crenshaw Plaza shopping center, according to William Elkins, a special assistant to Mayor Tom Bradley. Elkins said the city also will hire consultants to provide technical help for blacks and other minority tenants.
“There will be significant minority involvement, and by minority involvement I mean black involvement, in this project,” Elkins said at the annual meeting of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference Monday night.
Civil rights organizations and some black entrepreneurs have criticized the city and the mall developer, Alexander Haagen Co., for failing to ensure that the mall is a source of jobs, leases and investments for blacks. The mall, located in a predominantly black community, is expected to be completed in about a year.
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