News & Awards

Initiative for a Competitive Inner City

Project: Initiative for a Competitive Inner City
Award: Inner City 100
Category: Fastest Growing Urban Businesses
Date: 2016
Gelfand Partners Architects - Inner City 100
Gelfand Partners Architects among ICIC and Fortune’s Inner City 100 Winners

Annual ranking showcases the fastest-growing urban businesses in America

The Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC) and Fortune have announced that Gelfand Partners Architects has been selected for prestigious 2016 Inner City 100 list. This recognition places Gelfand Partners in an exemplary lineage of nearly 900 fast-growing and innovative urban core businesses.

ICIC’s Inner City 100 is an annually compiled and released list featuring high-power, high-potential businesses from around the country with headquarters in inner cities. Each company is selected by ICIC with help from a national network of nominating partners who seek to identify, spotlight, and further enable the named companies’ innovative urban entrepreneurship. Ranked by revenue growth, the esteemed recipients go on to have their names published in Fortune.

The Inner City 100 program recognizes and supports successful inner city business leaders, and celebrates their role in providing innovation and job creation in America’s cities. These companies strengthen local American economies, provide job opportunities for underrepresented communities, and drive forward economic and social development.

Highlights of the 2016 Inner City 100 include:

  • Employ 7,324 workers total in 2015.
  • Created 4,696 new jobs in the last five years.
  • On average, 34% of employees live in same neighborhood as the company.
  • Average company age is 16 years.
  • Average 2015 revenue is $12.2 million.
  • 34% are women-owned.
  • 37% are minority-owned.
  • 6% of the winners are certified B-Corps.
  • 26 industries represented in the top 100.

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Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC)

ICIC is a national nonprofit founded in 1994 by Harvard Business School professor Michael E. Porter. ICIC’s mission is to promote economic prosperity in America’s inner cities through private sector investment that leads to jobs, income and wealth creation for local residents. Through its research on inner city economies, ICIC provides businesses, governments and investors with the most comprehensive and actionable information in the field about urban market opportunities.