CentroVilla25's rendering, as shown at Friday's groundbreaking.
Slated to finish its buildout in late 2024, CentroVilla25 is designed as both a cultural and economical focal point in 51,490 square feet of space. Its aim is to host local changemakers, like the offices of Esperanza and the Young Latino Network, to start, along with a specialty grocer, a Latin restaurant, a commercial kitchen and 20 micro-retail units for area small businesses.
Jessica Contreras, who took on the CentroVilla25 project as in 2013, the year she was elected director of the Hispanic Alliance, was celebrated Friday as one of the strongest prime movers in the center's completion. Contreras, in her ten-minute speech, painted the project as a sort of pan-Latin epicenter, a celebratory homage to the Latin American places she pined to visit as a little girl.
Like Crespo, Feliciano, Sr., paid specific homage to both Guzman and Contreras, and reminded the crowd of how Guzman might be equally overjoyed to see the project realized.