Roxbury’s Black Market began with a promising vision but will close at month’s end

Business admin May 23, 2026 0 Comments

Roxbury’s Black Market began with a promising vision but will close at month’s end

The owners of Black Market in Nubian Square said that the Roxbury community gathering space will close at the end of the month because they cannot resolve a dispute with their landlord over buying the building.

The decision, announced in a video on Instagram on Friday, marks the end of a once-promising vision to turn the space on Washington Street into a launchpad for Black-owned businesses.

Market founders Kai and Chris Grant said that despite their best efforts and community outpouring over the last 35 days to raise money to buy the building they lease for their marketplace, their better judgment told them they can “no longer move forward with a deal.”

“We’ve gone through a mortgage process, we’ve done deep dives, we’ve sat with financially savvy advisors, we looked carefully at the cost of the capital, the debt structure, the risk, the long-term obligations, and what it would truly take to bear the weight of this acquisition responsibly,” Kai Grant said in Friday’s video. “And after all of that, the hard truth became clear … the level of risk required would place an unsustainable burden on us personally, financially and operationally.”

Since its inception, the marketplace has served as “a gathering place, a cultural anchor, a sanctuary, and a living expression of black identity,” Kai Grant said. The decision to close May 31 was not made “lightly,” she said.

Earlier this spring, the Grants revealed they were in a dispute with their landlord and asked for community help raising $369,000 by the end of this month to buy the two-story building at 2316 Washington St.

In 2021, the Grants signed a deal to eventually buy the building. Their landlord is the nonprofit Madison Park Development Corp.

In a statement Friday, Monica Dean, Madison Park’s chief executive, said the nonprofit was notified Friday afternoon that “the tenant had chosen to nullify the terms of the agreed-upon extension and vacate within the coming week.”

“This is an unfortunate turn of events,” Dean said. “Madison Park Development Corp. has worked diligently and in good faith to provide a path forward for Black Market.”

Dean said the nonprofit remains committed to its Nubian Square tenants and wishes the Grants “the best.”

City Councilor Miniard Culpepper, whose district includes the market, said in a phone interview Saturday that though the market is closing “physically,” it’s not closing “emotionally.”

“We’ll all work to keep it emotionally open,” he said. “The spirit of Kai and Chris will never stop.”

Nevertheless, he said the closure of the market is a loss of “an engine of economic development” for Boston’s Black community.

The Globe reported that many were surprised the Grants didn’t own the building outright and instead had an option to buy it for $1.3 million. Others wondered why an organization that had recently been awarded an $823,000 city contract for “creative placemaking” would struggle to keep its doors open. And some wondered why Madison Park, a long-standing Roxbury nonprofit, was at odds with a small business that seemed to share its mission.

Kai Grant told the Globe last month that their lease agreement with Madison Park “was supposed to be about becoming a model for equity and antidisplacement” that ensured artisans, founders, and microbusinesses could stay in Roxbury.

Dean told the Globe that Black Market had not upheld “their end of the bargain,” and the nonprofit would “put its own finances at risk if it continued to subsidize” the market’s lease.

The Grants owed $124,229.12 in unpaid rent accrued over 32 months between 2021 and 2023, according to records reviewed by the Globe.

Culpepper said the closure is “a product of this economy,” and emphasized that the venture was never intended as a “money-making venture.”

“If you look at the cuts in the city’s budget financially, the city is having challenging times. It’s not just a black market, it’s even the city government,” he said, referencing Mayor Wu’s proposed budget cuts.

The Grants opened Black Market Nubian in 2017 in the center of the city’s Black core in the hopes of nurturing fledgling local businesses.

For years, they hosted a marketplace out of the first floor, offering space to food, fashion, and craft vendors they hoped would plant roots and grow in Nubian Square.

After COVID, the Grants positioned the market more as a cultural space, arts and events venue. For five years, they have hosted an annual block party.

Janelle Nanos of the Globe Staff contributed to this report.