Months After Crash, FoundHERS Suite Founder Prepares to Reopen in New Location

Damage to the building that housed The FoundHERS Suite following a vehicle crash in early 2026. The impact damaged the storefronts and ultimately led to the building being deemed unsafe, forcing The FoundHERS Suite to vacate its second-floor space.

When a car crashed into the building housing The FoundHERS Suite at the beginning of 2026, LaTanya Orr suddenly found the future of the women-centered coworking community she had built thrown into uncertainty.

Eight months later, The FoundHERS Suite still doesn’t have a permanent home.

But Orr hasn’t stopped looking - or building.

Since the crash, she has been forced to vacate the Suite, spent months searching for a new location, graduated from the Goldman Sachs One Million Black Women: Black in Business program and launched BridgeWRX, a new venture drawing on nearly three decades of her experience in branding, strategy and entrepreneurship.

It wasn’t the 2026 Orr had planned. But the disruption gave her time to reconsider her business, sharpen her vision and begin building something that could extend beyond the walls of The FoundHERS Suite.

“The assignment was always bigger than the building,” Orr said.

The FoundHERS Suite was forced to leave its home

When we first spoke with Orr in February, The FoundHERS Suite was still operating with limited access following the crash. The two storefronts below her second-floor offices had suffered the worst of the impact, while several offices upstairs were declared off limits.

By the end of March, the situation had become more serious.

“We were ordered out of the space,” Orr said in August, reflecting on the incident. “We were told [it was] deemed dangerous.”

That sent Orr into a months-long search for a new home.

“I have been feverishly looking for a new space,” she said.

One potential location appeared promising before ultimately falling through. Now, Orr says she has submitted a letter of intent for another space and is working through the details.

She’s keeping the exact location quiet until everything is finalized, but she did reveal two things: It’s in Chicago, and it’s on the South Side.

Her original intention was to remain in Beverly.

“However, that proved to be almost, I don’t want to say impossible - but impossible,” Orr reluctantly said.

In the meantime, FoundHERS Suite members have continued operating remotely or from other spaces. Orr has remained in contact with them, and she says many are waiting to see where the Suite lands next.

The demand hasn’t disappeared either.

Orr said she received several new inquiries in just one recent week from people interested in private office space and hosting intimate events. That’s something The FoundHERS Suite had become known for before the crash.

But the next FoundHERS Suite won’t be exactly like the old one. Whenever the doors open again.

Her experience over the past several months, particularly her time in the Goldman Sachs One Million Black Women: Black in Business program, has led her to reconsider parts of the FoundHERS Suite business model.

LaTanya Orr attends the Goldman Sachs One Million Black Women: Black in Business program, which she graduated from in 2026.

Much of the core concept will remain, but Orr envisions moving further toward a membership model rather than what she described as a more traditional tenant arrangement.

She’s also considering new concierge-style services and more opportunities to showcase members’ businesses.

Many of the Suite’s members run service-based companies, while others sell physical products. Orr wants the next space to better accommodate both, including creating opportunities for members to regularly showcase and sell their products.

She also sees possibilities for restaurant pop-ups and other experiences that make the Suite more than simply a place to rent an office.

The ideas are part of a broader realization Orr reached while reconsidering the business from the ground up.

Learning to think like a CEO

When Orr entered the Goldman Sachs program, The FoundHERS Suite was the business she had in mind.

What followed was an experience she described as rigorous, eye-opening and revolutionary.

“I have an MBA, but I felt like I went back to school,” Orr said, describing the experience as an “MBA program on steroids.”

The program forced her to dig into everything from her ideal customer to operations and the long-term structure of the company.

Most importantly, it changed the perspective from which she was looking at those decisions.

Orr said she learned to examine the company “from a CEO perspective, not from a founder perspective.”

“Two totally different things,” she added.

And strangely enough, the disruption that threatened The FoundHERS Suite also gave Orr something she might not otherwise have had: time.

With the physical space closed, she could devote more attention to the demanding program and reconsider parts of the business that are much harder to examine while operating it every day.

“I would not have had time to, again, put things in perspective,” Orr said.

Now she says she feels more confident about the eventual reopening.

“Not that the previous way I was doing business was bad,” she said. “But it definitely has said, ‘Oh, okay, this is what I need to put in place going forward so that I’m successful.’”

BridgeWRX emerges from the disruption

The time away from the Suite also brought Orr back to another part of her professional identity.

Before The FoundHERS Suite, Orr spent nearly 30 years working in branding and marketing communications. Her previous company focused more heavily on design.

With the Suite temporarily closed, Orr began thinking about how she could put those decades of experience to work while continuing to search for a new location.

“I need to make some money,” she recalled thinking. “How do I, for now, really focus in on who I am in terms of the services that I have provided for 30-something years?”

Her answer became BridgeWRX.

Orr retired her prior business name and created an updated business that places greater emphasis on strategy, education and helping women entrepreneurs determine what comes next.

In a sense, the name describes Orr’s own experience as much as the service she’s offering.

BridgeWRX was born while Orr herself was navigating the space between what she had built and what she wanted to build next.

Through workshops, seminars and other programming, she is now working with women who may be confronting similar transitions.

Some feel stuck. Others have successful businesses but know something needs to change. Some are trying to reconcile the stage their business has reached with a new season in their personal lives.

And plenty simply have too many ideas.

“I have lots of ideas,” Orr said. “I have no shortage of ideas. But then how do I execute? And how do I know what’s best for now?”

That is the territory BridgeWRX is designed to explore.

For Orr, the focus is on helping women build what’s next.

A disruption that changed the direction

Looking back now, Orr sees January differently.

She entered 2026 with momentum. The previous year had gone well. Like most do at the start of the year, she had goals and plans for what she expected to accomplish next.

Then somebody, as she said, quite literally crashed into those plans.

“Somebody comes out the blue and crashes the idea that I had,” Orr said.

What followed were months of uncertainty, including the eventual order to leave the building entirely.

But Orr says BridgeWRX would not be where it is today if the crash had never happened.

“Absolutely not,” she said.

Without the disruption, she doesn’t believe she would have had the same opportunity to put things in perspective while simultaneously going through the Goldman Sachs program.

As Orr put it in announcing BridgeWRX and her graduation from the Goldman Sachs program:

“The assignment was always bigger than the building.”

SDA support continued beyond the initial crisis

One person who has remained in Orr’s corner throughout the transition is the Southland Development Authority’s (SDA’s) Jamie Makuch.

In February, Orr credited Makuch with helping identify resources and potential spaces as Orr navigated the uncertainty surrounding the damaged building.

The two had worked together remotely but hadn’t actually met face-to-face.

LaTanya Orr, right, attends the Southland Development Authority’s ACHIEVE Summit alongside fellow attendees in June 2026.

That finally changed this summer at a small business event in Blue Island.

“It was so good to just finally, for us to hug each other,” Orr said.

Orr said Makuch has continued providing encouragement, support and information about opportunities and resources throughout the months since the crash.

“She has been amazing,” Orr said. “I truly just certainly appreciated her support.”

From resilience to what’s next

Resilience was at the center of Orr’s story when we first spoke with her.

At the time, she reflected on losing her husband and how experiencing an irreversible loss changed the way she looked at a damaged building.

A building could be repaired. Businesses can adapt. And a new location could always be found.

Months later, the uncertainty isn’t entirely gone.

But she knows what she hopes the future looks like six months from now.

“I really do hope that, one, of course, that I’m in a new space and that I’m up and running and, of course, that things are well,” Orr said.

She expects BridgeWRX and The FoundHERS Suite to continue moving forward alongside one another, even if she doesn’t yet know exactly where that path leads.

Her approach is to keep moving, trust her faith and look for the opportunity inside circumstances she never would have chosen.

“With everything going on in the world these days, it’s kind of hard sometimes to see the silver lining,” Orr said. “But we have to believe that there is.”

Recently, someone told Orr something that stuck with her:

“LaTanya, your future is bright.”

After everything 2026 has thrown at her, Orr is still building toward it.

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.