Pastors Ken and Beverly Jenkins used to stand in the parking lot of 10148 West Florissant Avenue in Dellwood and pray.
The shopping plaza there had stood vacant for nearly 20 years. The Jenkinses saw potential in the space, in the community, in its people.
“We would talk about changing the narrative,” Ken says. “Everybody that descends in this area, they only talk about the bad things — the racial struggles, and the unrest, the disinvestment. But we talk about the possibility of changing a story.”
The couple, who live in Florissant, hosted a grand opening in September at the plaza, a $20 million, nearly 90,000-square-foot development called R&R Marketplace. It’s owned by their nonprofit, Refuge and Restoration, which started as a transitional home that helped men who had been incarcerated, unhoused, unemployed, or underemployed.
For about 20 years, Refuge and Restoration has also managed Jobs for Life, a career-training program that has helped over 3,000 people move into stable careers.
“For us, Refuge and Restoration really means a safe place to be restored,” Ken says.
Tenants of the marketplace include Employ St. Louis, North County Innovation Center, Assisted Recovery Centers of America, daycare center Brilliant Angels Academy, a second location for Cathy’s Kitchen, and a Midwest BankCentre branch. The restaurant and daycare center are still under construction, with plans to open soon.
A second phase of development will include a black-box theater, the Refuge and Restoration non-denominational church, an area for media production, and a commercial kitchen.
The effort, about 10 years in the making, wasn’t easy. The Jenkinses weren’t used to raising large amounts of money, but they knew how to connect with people.
The Jenkinses said they were able to secure over $4 million from U.S. Bancorp Impact Finance, which provided philanthropic contributions and investments facilitated by $13 million New Markets Tax Credit allocations from Heartland Regional Investment Fund and USBCDE, U.S. Bank’s community development entity. Midwest BankCentre also loaned them $5.75 million.
Midwest BankCentre has committed to loaning $200 million for community development projects throughout the region.
As bank officials looked at the Dellwood area, they learned there were 35 predatory lending businesses within a five-mile radius of the marketplace, says Wes Burns, the bank’s executive vice president for community and economic development.
The bank wants to help people who have been sucked into the cycle of payday lending, and partner with those who use other services at the marketplace.
Building the marketplace was new territory for the Jenkinses. They first met through Ken’s brother and sister-in-law, Jerome and Cathy Jenkins, who own Cathy’s Kitchen. They were married within the year.
They became youth pastors, and hosted Bible study groups in their home. That evolved into their own church and nonprofit. They raised four children and established roots and community in North County, which helped the banks and business partners have faith in the Jenkinses.
After the 2014 police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson and the uprising that followed, the couple were asked to lead a Bible study group for predominantly white executives and to talk about race. They developed more friendships and connections, and they learned how others viewed their community.
Ken remembered media reports saying there was “no hope” in Ferguson. “That wasn’t true,” he says. “People just need access to resources.”
Meanwhile, the Jenkinses kept hearing from people in their community about the resources they wanted: more local investment, more job opportunities.
The couple came up with a structure for the project, supported by five pillars: early childhood education, workforce development, small business development, banking, and the multiplex that includes the church and community resources.
“That was what we considered to be the ‘God vision’ — things that have to be in place in order for this to really work,” Beverly says.
On the other side of the Midwest BankCentre branch is Employ St. Louis, which helps teens and adults build communication and conflict resolution skills to help them advance and grow in their careers.
Ken points to a group picture of a recent graduating class: one woman became an accountant for a large firm, another woman opened a restaurant, and one man went back to college at Washington University.
That’s what the marketplace is all about, he says: transformation.
“We get up every day knowing if somebody (visits) this lot, their life is going to change,” Ken says. “That’s the goal. We find great peace and joy knowing that somebody came out here, and they left a different way.”
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