From $3,000 and a Printer to a Multimillion-Dollar Construction Business
Antigua Construction founder Edith De La Cruz is an all-timer success story hidden in plain sight.
“I started my company very, very humble and organic,” De La Cruz says. “I started with $3,000. I bought a computer, I bought a printer… too bad that it didn’t even work, but it did everything for me.”
Today, Antigua Construction, based in Chicago, has worked with clients ranging from the Illinois Tollway and O’Hare Airport to the federal government. But to get here, De La Cruz faced serious hardship.
De La Cruz, a Guatemalan immigrant, moved to Chicago at age nine. Her childhood in Guatemala was marked by violence and instability. And it shaped how she sees everything.
“I don’t know what being a little child was,” she says. “I would see little boys playing soccer in the parks… and then I would hear mothers screaming and children crying. They would gather the children, put them in trucks, point rifles at their heads. I was only five or six. I would go run, lock my door, and go under the bed and just pretend nothing was happening.”
By 14, she was already working. College came later, but only after raising children and holding down jobs to make it work. “I did the reversal,” she says. “I had children before going to college… being a mother, learning to be a student, and working at the same time.”
Construction was never the plan. De La Cruz wanted to be a human rights attorney. But after hearing teachers say they’d still be paying for their kids’ college, she looked for other options. A developer friend, as she put it, suggested buying distressed houses to fix and flip. “He made it sound so easy,” she laughs. “But I went ahead and ran with it.”
But when the 2008 financial crisis hit and the market tanked, De La Cruz adapted again. Everyone had to. Not everyone survived financially. She did.
“If people are not going to buy properties, they still have to rent,” she says. “And those properties still have to be fixed. So I decided to open up a construction company.”
She leaned on the skills she’d picked up flipping houses. That meant doing her own demo, painting, and breaking concrete. “My path being a contractor has been excruciatingly painful, to say the least,” she says. “I’m a Latina. I’m female. Back then it was kind of a big joke. But I was determined because I believed in my product.”
Faith carried her through. “I kept saying to myself, if God believes in me, then everybody else, we’re all the same.”
She eventually became certified as an MBE and WBE. Even though she didn’t know what those acronyms meant at the time. “All of these acronyms, I call them alphabet soup,” she says. “I had no idea. I was working because I believed in myself… truly, honestly believing in the American dream.”
From 2008 onward, the obstacles snowballed. But she kept going.
“If it works for the starving artist, it has to work for me,” she remembers telling herself.
Eventually, things started to change. She found her voice. She began leading teams. Now she has a seat at the table and doesn’t allow others to take her voice. “I can tell you it has transferred into millions. It has happened very organically, overcoming lots and lots of obstacles.”
She continued: “Sometimes people don’t believe in you. And that can either crush you or build you. You have to really believe in yourself and what you can deliver.”
That determination is what eventually connected her to the Southland Development Authority. She met the SDA’s CEO Bo Kemp on a panel over a year ago.
“I have 20 years in the business,” she said proudly. “This is the first time I feel like the red carpet is being rolled out. I feel really accepted. It’s not at a distance. I feel like it’s about the business, that they understand the vision I have.”
She’s now hiring through SDA-affiliated community organizations. “I hired four guys and they’re excited to be at work. I’m excited about training them, coaching them,” she says. “It reminds me of when I first started.”
Her goals, even after the millions made, remain big. “I didn’t come this far to stay in the same nest,” she says. “My dream is to be the largest Hispanic woman-owned construction company, not only in the Midwest, but nationwide.”
She knows it won’t be easy. But she’s already made it further than anyone expected.
“You’re going to fall many times. You’re going to bleed. But that makes you stronger,” she said, advising the next generation of entrepreneurs. “When you carve your own space, that path is there so that others can come behind you. They don’t have to do it anymore.”
About the Southland Development Authority
The Southland Development Authority, a not-for-profit economic development organization, is committed to driving equitable and sustainable economic growth in the south suburbs of Chicago. Through innovative programs, strategic partnerships, and impactful direct investments, the SDA is building a vibrant, inclusive economy that drives wealth growth for individuals, businesses and municipalities. Combined with the benefits of the South Suburban Land Bank and the Monarch Fund, the SDA serves as a model for regional development.
