Kell Duncan has been an integral force in shaping downtown Phoenix’s community spaces, including The Churchill that opened in 2018. (Photos by Jacob Tyler Dunn) Creating and sustaining a ‘community-motivated’ space Duncan calls his path to co-founding The Churchill, “kind of an accident.” In 2016, he was feeling burnt out and unhappy. He left his job and began exploring opening a coworking space with a cafe. Rodie was an acquaintance through mutual friends. Knowing that Duncan lived downtown, Rodie reached out and asked for a tour of the area. During their night out, the duo talked about develop- ments they both had in the works. “I had my little idea that was much smaller than what he was planning; he had this really big, grand idea,” Duncan says. It became clear they both wanted to create purposeful spaces where people could gather and launch businesses. As their conversations continued, Rodie suggested they partner up. It was a learning process, Duncan recalls. They initially struggled to find financing and realized they needed to scale back designs for a second story and larger footprint. Duncan credits neighbors, city planners and Local Studio, The Churchill’s architect, for believing in the concept and helping the pair pivot and open the corru- gated doors in 2018. The 14,000-square-foot space includes 10 container-based businesses that encircle the courtyard. Today that roster includes Freak Brothers Pizza, smoothie bar InFruition, Hawaiian barbecue spot Loco Style Grindz, skillet cookie-centered Scookie Bar, bagel and burger shop Stoop Kid, grocery and snack vendor Neighbor Market, beauty and fragrance shop Cayla Gray, apparel brand State Forty Eight and Churchill-run bars The Brill Line and So Far So Good. A gabled roof covers the buzzing alfresco space with views of the Phoenix sky creeping through. In the heat of the summer, the sound of fans and misters whirls above the music pumping through the sound system. While this model of bringing together several businesses under one roof isn’t new, its operators point to their work to incubate small businesses and support the community through tenants’ “social rent” as differentiators. “We’re not just a business, I think we are community-motivated,” Duncan says. For its first group of tenants, the lease term was five years, with the aim of giving businesses the benefits of a brick-and- mortar location without taking on as much risk and financial investment. To meet their “social rent,” tenants also were asked to contribute time or dollars quarterly to a charity of their choice. “We’re about community, about giving back and about putting something ahead of the bottom line,” Rodie told Phoenix New Times in 2018. In 2020, Duncan was exploring more projects, but the pandemic disrupted those plans. With The Churchill shuttered in the early days of lockdown, he says the duo took stock and mutually agreed to part ways. Duncan threw himself into stabilizing The Churchill and working with its tenants. He brought in Allen to lead opera- tions. The industry veteran has worked in Los Angeles and with LGO Hospitality, the group behind popular local restaurants such as La Grande Orange and Chelsea’s Kitchen. “We hit it off quickly,” Allen says. “Kell is such a unique guy. It’s hard to describe exactly the way that he has this ownership of looking out and trying to develop Phoenix.” Coming out of the pandemic, Duncan and Allen worked with tenants to retool lease agreements, shortening the lease lengths, lowering the base rent and creating a collective pool for social rent to maximize the impact tenants can have as a group. “We’re happy that we’ve been here for six years,” Duncan says. “It’s not been a normal six years either. It’s been a pretty crazy six years.” Building on The Churchill’s success With things normalizing in downtown Phoenix, an opportunity in Peoria presented itself. The West Valley city hopes to revitalize its historic downtown and tapped Duncan and Allen, along with brothers Gavin and Lance Linderman, owners of Driftwood Coffee and Easy Tiger bar, to curate a larger Churchill-esque space called Jefferson House. It’s a bit of a homecoming for Duncan, who was raised in Goodyear and attended Agua Fria High School in Avondale. “I’ve always had a soft spot for the West Valley,” Duncan says. It’s where his parents built their busi- ness, Duncan Family Farms, from a few hundred acres of crops into a multistate organic growing operation that employs hundreds of people. “It’s been pretty amazing,” Duncan says of watching that growth. And the admira- tion goes both ways. His father, Arnott Duncan, says he’s “in awe” of what his son has built. “I couldn’t be more proud of him for being that guy that everybody trusts to do something special with. The key there is trust,” Arnott says. Arnott also credits Duncan’s affability and desire to help connect others, regard- less of how it may benefit him. “He’s very interested in people >> p 15