Guest Speaker Leon Walker
Leon I. Walker, Esq. was the guest speaker at our weekly Zoom Meeting of June 9, 2020. He was introduced by his friend and partner Scott Gendell, who is a club member of the Rotary Club of Skokie Valley.
Leon spoke about his company, DL3 Realty's real estate investments and acquisitions in and around Chicago Southside underdeveloped territory, and the effect of the recent civil unrest on his property investments.
Over 30 years ago, the principals of DL3 Realty came together to revitalize the commercial landscape of the far south side of Chicago, which had declined after the social unrest of the 1960s.
DL3 Realty has spent the past 20 years acquiring prominent commercial locations in Chicago’s urban communities in order to establish high quality education programs, professional office buildings, and national retailer anchored strip malls.
Today, DL3 Realty is a locally engaged and nationally-recognized full service real estate development firm that is dedicated to transforming communities through high-impact commercial real estate. From medical centers to grocery stores, our connection to community creates a pipeline of development opportunities that improves the quality of life for everyday Chicagoans. We continue to expand through new developments and acquisitions of commercial sites, including an active pipeline of over $100 million in commercial projects designed to elevate Chicago's urban communities.
Leon Walker, who was raised on Chicago’s South Side, is an experienced corporate real estate professional who is passionate about revitalizing Chicago's underserved communities. In his community development work, Walker has been involved in structuring over $100 million in New Markets Tax Credit transactions.
He is involved in many community initiatives including the Greater Chicago Food Depository, Civic Federation of Chicago, Marshall Bennett Institute of Real Estate at Roosevelt University and the government relations committee of the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC).
DL3’s developments have won numerous awards including the LISC-Chicago Most Outstanding Development Award in 2009, 2017 and most recently the 2020 award for our Jewel Osco grocery store in Woodlawn, which we developed in partnership with Scott Gendell of Terraco (https://map.lisc-cnda.org/2020/cnda/dl3-realty-and-terraco-real-estate-for-the-woodlawn-jewel-osco).
Click Here to view Leon Walker Ted-Talk YouTube Video