Building Community

The Marquette Companies

By Leah Etling on Mar 28, 2013 in People

For the founders of The Marquette Companies, building a successful community is about much more than construction followed by profitable management.

It’s not just about building a place for people to live, but a place where residents can engage with their neighbors, participate in healthy activities, and learn and grow together. That’s the foundation of the model of the Institute for Community (IFC), which began in 1996 and provides on-site programming and true opportunity for connection that’s available to thousands of Marquette residents.

“Our mission is building quality relationships where people live and work through the power of genuine community,” said Mike Vickery, Executive Director of the IFC. “The founders (of Marquette) had built beautiful places, and they really wanted to build places where people lived beautifully as well.”

In practice, that meant putting together a place and a program that would foster social interaction, community connection, and enhance residents’ lives and well-being.

The IFC Friendship Centre in the Romeoville, Ill. HighPoint community brings in 8,000 to 10,000 people per month, many of them children, for sports, classes, activities and other programming. The Friendship Center is a 27,000 square foot facility that’s available free of charge to community residents and also open to non-residents, who can use it for a fee. With a staff of just four full-time employees, 125 volunteers contribute weekly to help everything run smoothly.

An annual Marquette Charity Golf Tournament raises around $100,000 each year for scholarships for low-income HighPoint youth. Vendors and equity partners get involved as sponsors and donors, and Marquette properties around the country pitch in as well.

The scholarships ensure everyone is included in the activities and opportunities. Income from memberships and programming, as well as outside grant funding, covers the rest of the center’s operating costs.

Programming is conducted in partnership with other neighboring organizations, and there are family activities, wellness classes, recreational sports leagues, after-school activities, summer camp programs, academic enrichment courses, and much more.

With a proven track record, the IFC model has already demonstrated its success. The non-profit was able to purchase the Friendship Center facility from Marquette years ago. And the programming results in not just happier residents, but higher resident retention.

“It’s done well for Marquette’s business with regards to their occupancy. Everybody wants to come live here,” Vickery said. “It’s been nice to see a company that has done so much to give back to the community also do well.”

As a result of its success, IFC has looked for opportunities to expand nationally. Friendship Centers are slated for large master-planned communities in Idaho and Georgia, which will benefit from the lessons learned at HighPoint.

“You can really see this program flourish, especially in the last seven or eight years. You can really see it making a difference in our community, and making a difference is one of our core values,” said Sandy Hohenstein, Controller for the Marquette Companies.

The Marquette corporate office is on site at HighPoint, so the daily frenzy of programming activity is impossible to miss. Hohenstein noted that she’s been especially moved by the summertime free lunch program, which ensures that low-income kids spending their day at the Friendship Center get a healthy meal at midday.

HighPoint puts on major events for residents regularly, bringing neighbors together to share celebrations and community. One of the founding partners of Marquette Companies, Nick Ryan, has volunteered as Santa Claus at the annual Christmas celebration each year.

A springtime Daddy-Daughter dance has become wildly popular, with a huge crew of volunteers who create a magical thematic venue for the evening. At Halloween, the creative Trunk-or-Treat competition has residents decorating their cars and passing out candy in a HighPoint parking lot, hoping to outdo each other with the best spooky decorations.

At 13 other Marquette-managed communities, smaller programming efforts, called Community Life, are in place. They are managed by on-site teams living in the community, who greet new residents when they arrive, organize group activities like social get-togethers and participation in charity fundraisers, and more. The programs reach more than 6,000 residents.

The people who create the programming are appropriately called “community life architects,” who design strong community connections between neighbors who might otherwise never meet.

IFC also has an international component, which involves annual mission trips to Honduras by Marquette employees. While they are there, they volunteer on behalf of Casa de Luz, a children’s care and early education facility in the city of Tegucigalpa. Employees who participate fundraise on behalf of the facility and are paid for their time while volunteering. During their stay, they might work on a construction project or teach English to the children at the school.

“That to me is extraordinary, when you see a company’s values come off the wall in that way. Give people time off, let them go make a difference somewhere, and bring those experiences back. (Marquette) realizes that from a management perspective, when those people go through those experiences, they become better people and better managers and better teammates,” Vickery said.

Yardi commends The Marquette Companies, a Yardi client, for their exceptional efforts on behalf of their residents and community.