Black developers are trying to build homes on Philly-owned land. They’re part of a program to diversify the industry that’s got other cities intrigued.

Inside a Toronto convention center, real estate professionals gathered in May to listen as two men from Philadelphia described their work coaching and growing the businesses of developers of color.

The session’s crowd at the Urban Land Institute’s spring conference started off a decent size. But by the time the men had finished their presentation about the Philly RiSE program and how it extends capital and networks to people historically excluded from the development industry, it had grown to standing-room only, said Kevin Moran, one of the speakers and executive director of the Philadelphia chapter of the Urban Land Institute, an international network of real estate and land use professionals that aims to shape the future of the built environment.

“Anecdotally, it really showed the level of interest in this topic across this larger, really global community,” said Moran, whose ULI Philadelphia has been partnering with the creators of Philly RiSE — a group of Black business leaders called the Black Squirrel Collective. The group graduated its first cohort from the first phase of the program in December 2022.

» READ MORE: Developers of color just graduated from a new Philly program that aims for equity in real estate

In Toronto, Moran and Black Squirrel partner Jim Burnett, who is the executive director of the Philadelphia-based community development financial institution VestedIn, shared their hope that the Philly RiSE program can be a model to diversify the real estate industry and grow wealth in communities of color.

Afterward, industry professionals asked them how they could replicate the program in their cities. Folks in about two dozen municipalities have reached out.

Back in Philadelphia, Black Squirrel and its partners are guiding the developers in the Philly RiSE program over one of their largest hurdles yet — acquiring city-owned properties from the Philadelphia Land Bank. It’s a process that can be complex, especially for small- and mid-scale developers who have never gone through it.

Black Squirrel plans to start its second Philadelphia cohort next fall with at least three more to follow, and plans to launch its program in another city in the next couple of years.

“Ultimately, our goal is to drive wealth in the Black and brown communities through real estate,” Thomas Webster, Black Squirrel partner and a business and investment adviser, said in June. “And through that, how do we continue to impact positively and diversify Philadelphia’s real estate ecosystem?”

A lack of city-owned properties going to developers of color helped spur Black Squirrel to create the Philly RiSE program. Getting land cheaply from the city helps hold down development costs and home prices.

» READ MORE: Philly will try to diversify real estate development by offering resources and training

Since December 2022, when developers with 12 companies graduated from the first phase of the program, participants have been working toward building as many as 50 new homes, with the goal of offering at least 51% at below-market-rate prices. The first few projects could start breaking ground in the spring, said Kevin Williams, Black Squirrel partner and a business development consultant.

“All the developers, they’re excited, they’re ready, they’re funded,” Williams said. “And they’re all doing their thing.”

Over the last year, the developers have faced challenges in their professional and personal lives. One lost her son in a shooting and stepped away from the program.

Within the program, participants are learning firsthand how frustrating getting properties from the Philadelphia Land Bank can be. They applied about eight months ago for about 50 properties.

“It shouldn’t take that long to release land from the city, but it is what it is,” Williams said.

The developers are moving through a lengthy process that includes meetings with residents in the neighborhoods and revisions to their development proposals. Then, after the Land Bank approves their plans, City Council will have to vote to approve the transfer of city land.

The whole process is new to Philly RiSE participants, who have been learning how feedback from city officials and neighborhood residents can mean revamping development plans.

Ugochukwu Opara, a real estate agent, landlord, and owner of the new company 215 Development Corp., has been working with the Philadelphia Housing Authority to renovate properties slated for demolition and sell them below market rate. But this is the first time Opara has had to work with registered community organizations and the Land Bank.

With Black Squirrel’s support, he plans to build five three-bedroom, 1½-bathroom homes in North Philadelphia through Philadelphia’s Turn the Key program, an initiative to give developers city-owned land to build 1,000 price-restricted homes for first-time buyers in certain neighborhoods.

“My whole philosophy is let’s give back to the community and make some money,” Opara said.

Once he is ready to start construction, he plans to partner with housing counselors and real estate professionals to offer classes to get first-time buyers who are interested in his and other properties qualified to participate in Turn the Key, which requires housing counseling.

» READ MORE: Philly officials celebrated the first house sold in a city initiative to build up to 1,000 price-restricted homes

“Everything I’ve done in my life is basically by myself,” Opara said. “To be able to do something like this where you have so many people supporting you, so many people reaching out, checking in, it’s always overwhelming to see how many people care about my little company and what I’m trying to do.”

Partnering with Black Squirrel “has been sensational,” he said. “After a certain level, hard work just isn’t going to be enough. The reputation you build, relationships, who you know is going to open more doors than what you know and how hard you’ve been working.”

At the beginning of the Philly RiSE program in 2022, ULI Philadelphia held classes for the developers to help them grow and sustain their businesses. In the year since participants graduated from that first training phase, ULI Philadelphia has been sharing design, financial, and legal resources, Moran said. The organization connected the developers with attorneys for advice on preparing to close real estate deals.

“It’s been really exciting to see over time the different challenges that have been identified, and because of the network of partners Philly RiSE has assembled, to see how quickly and easily we’ve been able to pull together the resources to help folks through those challenges,” Moran said.

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Those connections have been “invaluable,” said Ibraheim Campbell, a Philly RiSE participant and principal at Soar City Development.

He has been working with the Land Bank and Strawberry Mansion residents as he prepares to build five three-bedroom, two-bathroom homes in the neighborhood in his first try at a public-private partnership.

Based on feedback about layout and storage that he called “humbling,” he expanded the square footage of his homes a bit. His latest meeting with neighborhood residents was Jan. 4. He applied to the Land Bank for lots back in the spring.

Black Squirrel has been advocating on behalf of Campbell and the rest of his cohort and “getting us in front of the right people to ask the questions to get us the insight as new developers,” Campbell said.

“Getting to this point, I don’t know if I would have been able to do alone,” he said. “I’ve always been someone where my work speaks for itself. But for this, you need a little more than that. So it’s nice to have Black Squirrel in your corner.”