Daniel Grinspan, MPP ’24, University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy
Following the 2020 pandemic, the City of Chicago has experienced a record-high office vacancy rate. Since 2019 the percentage of vacant offices has doubled to a staggering 30 percent, with numerous companies and workplaces turning to primarily remote workspaces. A once-bustling center where during weekdays, sidewalks are filled with professionals rushing to meetings or grabbing lunch at the plethora of franchise-run restaurants has become more and more of a vacant wasteland. Beyond the “9-5”, the transition to remote work has eliminated any commute for many professionals who lived in the Loop, incentivizing them to migrate elsewhere in the City, outside Downtown. While this phenomenon may be viewed in a negative light as a loss in assets, transitions in generational housing needs and desires may bring more opportunity to the Loop than loss.
The nationwide increase in large office vacancy rates has sparked many urban initiatives since the COVID-19 pandemic with LaSalle Street Reimagined leading the charge in Downtown Chicago. Here nearly 2.3 million square feet of vacant office buildings will be converted into mixed uses of residences and retail in the Loop. According to the City, at least 30 percent of each proposed residential conversion will be used towards affordable housing, creating approximately 600 homes. However, this initiative offers more than just transformative programming, but a re-emergence of urban centers that breathe life beyond the 9-5.
In many ways, American cities have lost sight of what urban downtowns represent. In the modern age, they serve as a center for professionals to commute into, work their 9-5, and then head back home. While concentrating all of our jobs into a single center is not an inherently bad idea, a lack of variety in uses within the center has created a gray dystopia in which the 9-5 takes over. Local businesses have been primarily replaced with corporate franchises such as Chipotle, Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, etc. Parks and plazas are designed for work lunches, rather as a recreational escape to nature or open space. Public Transit via the CTA is primarily centered around 9-5 as it loops around the Loop, concentrates the majority of running trains between the hours of 9-5, and limits train-to-train access between neighborhoods. Currently, there is no reason to visit Downtown outside the 9-5, a contradictory system to European cities, in which the downtown centers are a place of congregations, large open space plazas, recreational activities, and access to local businesses and cafes. A design that existed in the United States before the Mid-20th century and the rise of suburbanization. It is here where the increased office vacancy rate created by the pandemic may be used to once again bring back our soul-imbued Downtowns.
LaSalle Reimagined aims to build on to a large number of new homes with efforts to improve the public realm. Fostering a more neighborhood-oriented public realm along LaSalle’s sidewalks and plazas. This initiative is perfectly timed with the generational growth of millennials who have dominated the current housing market. This new housing demand is willing to exchange space for shorter commutes, mixed-use neighborhoods, and shared open spaces that foster community interaction, a contradiction to the suburbs, the primary housing development of the previous generation. LaSalle Reimagined may paint the way for nationwide trends of returning to our urban centers and populating them with life and soul, rather than briefcases and suits.