Our Story
A partnership with the city to nurture our vital neighborhood
The Central Area Collaborative (CAC) is a community-centered organization based in Seattle, WA, committed to advancing small and micro businesses—especially those led by African Americans and individuals from the global majority. With over a decade of work rooted in the Central District, CAC fosters economic opportunity, equity, and prosperity by directly investing in historically underserved entrepreneurs.
Our Mission
CAC’s mission is to invest knowledge, energy, and capital into businesses to cultivate a thriving neighborhood ecosystem. This work helps secure equitable access to resources and builds long-term prosperity for current and future residents of the Central District and broader Central Area.
Our Partners
CAC partners closely with business owners to navigate support from the City of Seattle’s Office of Economic Development, the Washington State Department of Commerce, and a range of local agencies across Seattle and King County. Through this collaboration, CAC connects entrepreneurs with vital services—such as free accounting and business consulting, access to commercial space, and small business legal assistance.
Shared, Community-Based Goals
The Central Area Collaborative measures success against five goals developed through a multi-stage process of garnering input from community stakeholders.These goals help us focus our efforts, activate our mission, and manifest the community’s vision of creating a thriving Central Area community.
Align ongoing commercial development in the Central Area with community input.
1
Establish, retain, and grow independent, micro, and small businesses in the Central Area
2
Increase job training and social services for special populations living and working in the Central Area
3
Develop a thriving, high-quality, and educational food ecosystem reflective of the African diaspora.
4
Establish the Central Area as an African American arts and cultural center.
5
How We Started
In April 2015, the City of Seattle’s Office of Economic Development (OED) launched a commercial revitalization planning process in Seattle’s Central Area as part of the Only in Seattle initiative.
This plan was in direct response to the request of business owners and community members for greater investment in the economic vitality of this historic community. OED hired Nyawela Consulting, a Seattle-based communications firm, to facilitate a community engagement process and write the Central Area Commercial Revitalization Plan. More than 180 individuals and representatives from fifty organizations participated in twenty meetings over six months. OED and Nyawela Consulting worked in partnership to develop relationships and create the environments and processes that would ultimately inspire, inform, and create the Central Area Commercial Revitalization Plan.
The goals, strategies, and measures found in the Central Area Commercial Revitalization Plan support the guiding vision for the neighborhood, as described in the 23rd Avenue Action Plan created in 2013. The City of Seattle’s Department of Planning and Development led a community-centered process to develop the 23rd Avenue Action Plan—an update to the 1998 Central Area Neighborhood Plan that focused specifically on the 23rd Avenue corridor.
All participants involved in the engagement process were eager to attract investments and implement the five goals identified in the Commercial Revitalization Plan. A handful of leaders from various organizations in the community stepped up to form the Central Area Collaborative—a collection of local business community leaders that have agreed to work together and align their efforts and resources to achieve a great business community.
Central Area Collaborative aimed to create a system that fostered the holistic development of the community. We wanted everyone to feel heard. So, we developed a process to engage our community’s leaders, residents, businesses, educational institutions, non-profit organizations, and clergy and guide them towards a better future.
The process involved six rounds of engagement and discussion:
Our Engagement Process
First Round
OED engaged six segmented groups to create personal and community timelines that communicated their personal and professional commitment to an investment in the Central Area. As a result of this round, the community bonded and started communicating effectively.
Second Round
Round two focused on identifying the individual and collective needs and wants of the community. During this time, we focused on identifying overlapping needs and wants and began to consider operational structures for the collaboration. We also brought in the Cultural District partners to ensure people were aware and informed of our initiative.
Third Round
Round three meetings focused on leadership. We met with individuals and organizations interested in leading this work or hosting it until it became self-sustainable. We discussed two key questions:
What is the proper structure for the neighborhood?
What role are you willing to play?
After these discussions, we emphasized that OED is still looking for direction from the community to decide how to organize. The community leaders’ ongoing roles would be to provide space and facilitation to ensure the collaboration was developed and supported in its early formation.
Fourth Round
Round four consisted of a meeting with all groups. During this meeting, we developed a community timeline and outlined a plan that led to goals and strategies. We asked unlikely and often unfamiliar collaborative participants to work as partners for this process. We then conducted a group review to ensure transparency.
Fifth Round
We reviewed the goals and strategies and organized them into a more traditional document. The community articulated the entire document to approve its language for goals and strategies.
Sixth Round
Round six meetings were a series of goal-based meetings. We hosted one meeting for each goal and invited anyone interested to attend. During each meeting, we asked participants to analyze and edit the goal, along with its respective strategies and measures. The facilitated process led to a natural prioritization that was assessed as being both accurate and effortless.