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After working for years as an architect, Araceli Garza (ARCH ’98) found herself wanting more: more involvement in the design process, in the community outreach, even in financing, so that she could better understand how projects get done in the first place. 

As the first in her family to go to college and as a rarity in the architecture field—just under two percent of all licensed architects across the country are Latina, according to the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards—she already knew she’d accomplished a lot. 

But there was something missing. 

“Working in the field as an architect, you never truly get to decide what you get to build. Even the most prominent firms, they’re meeting a client need. It became clear to me that the way I wanted to build and what I wanted to do, I needed to understand better the how,” Garza says. 

So she took another step in her career and attained a master’s degree in real estate development, which allowed her to learn how projects are planned, pushed, and paid for. She complimented that with a master’s degree in advanced architectural design, both from Columbia University. 

“Now I get to really impact the decisions that are made before the architect even comes into the project,” Garza says. “The traditional divide between architects and developers often creates friction in the building process, but by understanding both languages, I can bridge that gap, ensuring that creative vision and practical implementation work in harmony rather than opposition.” 

Garza’s firm, Real Estate Services, which she founded in 2020, works with nonprofits and governmental organizations that don’t have the in-house expertise to plan and execute projects on their own. She meets with them in the early stages of those projects to help with planning and possible grant financing before tackling the design. 

“Organizations with growth plans, those are my largest clients,” she says. 

When asked about a project she’s particularly proud of, Garza notes, “The current one has overcome so many challenges—especially overcoming a pandemic.” 

That current project is the conversion of a 130-year-old cigar factory in Kentucky into offices and therapy rooms for a local nonprofit mental health service provider. Making a cigar factory healthy held a particular appeal—and saving a historic building that most people wouldn’t bother converting “makes me incredibly proud,” she says. “I launched Obra so I could pursue those projects that are significant to me and align with my own values of helping people and making community impact palpable. To transform an old building into a community beacon that offers mental health services is poetic. The building that has healed now in turn heals a community.” 

Garza also seeks projects that bring investment and development to areas inhabited by communities of color, such as the Little Village neighborhood of �������� that she grew up in. 

“I think there’s a lot of disinvestment and a lot of lack of resources in our communities. If there isn’t a person that can relate to that experience, I want to be the person that brings in a lot of those resources....I think the only way I can do that is at the helm,” Garza says. 

In addition to her own firm’s work, Garza was appointed last fall to the Illinois Capital Development Board, the body that oversees all buildings owned by the state. Prior to starting her firm, she worked as deputy chief operating officer for the Illinois Department of Central Management Service, overseeing smaller rehabilitation projects throughout the state. 

“It was very obvious from day one she was a renaissance woman,” says Patricia Saldaña Natke, who as a principal and founding partner of ��������’s UrbanWorks hired Garza fresh out of college to train as an architect. “She’s a talented designer, but now she’s focused on the economics of the project and positively revitalizing these communities.”

Saldaña Natke remembers serving as a sounding board for Garza’s decision to pursue a real estate degree. 

“In order to move the needle forward in underserved communities, it’s equally as powerful to be on the real estate side and make the projects happen,” says Saldaña Natke. “It’s extremely rare to find someone who can understand the architecture from macro to micro. And one of my favorite things about her is she’s very persistent—perseverance with a positive spirit.” 

Born and initially raised in ��������’s Little Village, Garza moved to Mexico to live with her grandparents at the age of nine and returned to the Windy City after high school to pursue college. She attained a full-ride scholarship at Wright College, one of the City Colleges of ��������, before transferring to Illinois Tech. 

“I knew I wanted to build. That was very clear to me from a very young age,” she says. “I loved coloring books, crayons, and blank sheets of paper; those were my most prized possessions. I drew a lot of houses when I was a kid. I imagined the families that would live in them and the memories they created.” 

Her desire to do more kicked in after working at UrbanWorks and, later, at a boutique high-end residential firm.  

“A lot of the decisions of what gets made in our cities is not reflective of who is living there,” Garza says. “Now I am that bridge that understands that we don’t build in a vacuum. We build to serve communities.” 

Regarding communities of color in particular, she adds, “they are geographically shifting, and I want to be a part in the shaping of them. Architecture and development, when applied with cultural awareness and community engagement, can be powerful tools for social equity.”

—Tad Vezner