The week in business
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DEVELOPMENT
Plans for Seaport District tower include âgreat hall,â public access
Boston Global Investors plans to break ground at the end of the year on a 17-story tower at 401 Congress St. in the Seaport District, a parking lot tucked between the Seaport Hotel and the Boston Convention & and Exhibition Center. The upper floors will be the kind of state-of-the-art lab and office space that companies flocking to the Seaport have come to expect. The buildingâs base will feature a two-story âgreat hallâ connecting Congress Street and the elevated World Trade Center Avenue. It would be open to the public 24/7 and be located alongside new parks and plazas above the tangle of the Massachusetts Turnpike offramps below. It would be one of the grander and most public ground floors in the Seaport, and thatâs by design, said Victor Vizgaitis, a principal at Sasaki, BGIâs architect on the building. It has set up the lo
PR maven Colette Phillips launches $250,000 fund to help small businesses owned by people of color
The nonprofit GK Fund will dole out $10,000 grants to entrepreneurs
By Jon Chesto Globe Staff,Updated February 17, 2021, 6:55 p.m.
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Colette Phillips has launched a nonprofit aimed at helping small businesses owned by people of color.
Colette Phillips, Andre Porter, and Michael Benezra got the idea to launch a fund for small businesses owned by people of color in 2019, before the pandemic and the George Floyd protests threw the issue of racial equity into stark relief.
Now, after the most tumultuous year in recent memory, their idea seems even more timely.
New Commonwealth racial equity fund scores another big donation: $1 million from Robert Kraft
By Shirley Leung Globe Columnist,Updated February 2, 2021, 12:01 a.m.
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New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and his family reached out to the New Commonwealth Fund in December; a Zoom conference followed, and then the donation.David L. Ryan/Globe Staff/file
The New Commonwealth fund â launched by Black and brown Boston business executives to eliminate systemic racism â has scored another big donation: $1 million from Robert Kraft.
It is the largest donation from an individual to a fund that has raised nearly $30 million since July, largely from Boston-area corporations and their foundations. Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots, hopes his donation during Black History Month will spur others to make substantial contributions to the fund.