Our History

Formed by a group of local business owners, the Madison-Western Chamber of Commerce was originally founded in the 1990’s to serve as a voice for local business needs. In this capacity the chamber served as a delegate to the City of Chicago’s Department Community Development (formerly known as Department of Planning) for many years. Sometime between 2005 and 2007 the chamber went under disrepair and closed.

Separately, the Near West Side Community Development Corporation was in the process of updating the West Haven community’s quality-of-life plan “West Haven: Rising Like the Phoenix”. In this plan, a key strategy was to “attract more and better retail services – and jobs”. The plan was published in 2007, and the CDC submitted and received several grants to support this key strategy.

The Madison Retail Revitalization Initiative (MRRI) was formed and has continues to serve the desires of community residents for “more and better retail services” as a program of the CDC. In the process of promoting local businesses while attracting new ones, a desire to revive the old chamber among local business owners was echoed. There was a desire among local businesses to organize in a more structured format and serve as delegate agent once again.

The CDC's MRRI program reached out to the former president of the chamber in order to begin the process of resurrecting the chamber under new managment.  A new board of directors, charter and by-laws were approved in May 2009. The Madison-Western Chamber of Commerce was legally changed to Near West Side Chamber of Commerce in the Fall of 2009 to better reflect the chamber's boundaries and new direction. The program manager of MRRI serves as the Executive Director of the Near West Side Chamber of Commerce.

Throughout the restructuring and name changes, the chamber’s original mission has remained the same from the day it was originally founded: to promote, unite and coordinate efforts to revitalize and improve the business community in order to achieve comprehensive development and enhance the economic life of concerned business people and community professionals in the area.