The Forty Acres Fresh Market on Chicago Avenue in the Austin neighborhood, the only Black-owned grocery store in the city, succeeds at every level.

Its metal-clad exterior is bold — with corrugated panels set at a 45-degree angle and punctuated by distinctive trapezoidal windows. But its inviting interior is more muted in its expression. And its adaptive reuse of two old and architecturally undistinguished structures demonstrates a better way to build a city than Chicago’s oft-prevailing demolition ways. 

The renovation, completed in September, was designed by Latent Design under the direction of founding principal Katherine Darnstadt and principal Nicolas Anderson. “When people walk in here, the design immediately says something to them,” owner Liz Abunaw said of her 12,000-square-foot store. “And even from the outside, it looks completely different.”

The smart use of simple but varied metal panels on the exterior facades recalls Latent’s earlier Rusu-McCartin Boys & Girls Club that’s about a mile and a half east on Chicago Avenue. The diagonal of the corrugated metal panels reflects the 40 acres of the business’s name, a reference to the broken promise of the post-Civil War era that was supposed to provide 40 acres and a mule to formerly enslaved people.  

The small parking lot at the corner of Chicago and Waller avenues can accommodate just a handful of cars, which encourages walking or the use of public transportation. Latent accomplished some slick sleight of hand by maintaining the existing parking lot footprint while accommodating delivery truck access without impinging on adjacent streets. The “business model doesn’t work unless you get a big delivery,” Anderson........

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