To live and buy on La Salle St: Plan for housing, other uses of financial district is worth watching

La Salle Street was once Chicago’s undisputed corridor of power, with nearly a mile of major banks, financial institutions and blue-chip law firms lined up cheek-to-jowl between Jackson Street and Wacker Drive.

But some of La Salle’s might has been diluted in recent years as many of its institutions have decamped the street for new high-rise office buildings in the West Loop and along the riverfront on Wacker Drive.

That’s why we feel La Salle Street Reimagined, Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration’s new effort to rethink the historic thoroughfare, is just the right move.

Lightfoot’s Department of Planning has issued an Invitation for Proposals aimed at repurposing more than 4 million square feet of vacant office space on and around La Salle Street into new storefront businesses and housing.

“Diversifying this corridor is an essential component in our strategy to restore La Salle’s vitality, create more neighborhood-serving retail, and foster a more inviting pedestrian environment in the heart of the Loop that will benefit all Chicagoans,” Lightfoot said in a recent statement announcing the initiative.

A different La Salle Street

La Salle Street Reimagined seeks new uses for buildings between Jackson and Washington streets and roughly a block east and west of the location.

And in terms of refilling empty offices and retail, there is a lot of room to work with: The 4.5 million square feet of unused space within the corridor — an amount equal to the gross square footage within the Willis Tower.

The chief addition the city would like to see in the corridor is 1,000 new residential units, with 300 of them set aside for those with low or moderate incomes.

The effort also calls for the preservation and reuse of lobby spaces. Many of them, particularly 1920s bank buildings within the corridor, are among the finest in the city.

Many cities are reconsidering their downtown financial districts, by either converting offices into residential units or building the homes outright.

It’s been happening for years along New York City’s Wall Street. One of the newest projects there is the conversion of One Wall Street — a 1931 Art Deco bank building and office tower in the city’s Financial District — into 566 condominium units.

The Big Apple’s largest ever office-to-residential conversion, the 50-story building has a 44,000-square-foot Whole Foods and a four-story fitness center.

But many of the Wall Street conversions result in high-end residential units. Units at One Wall Street are currently listing at prices between $1.1 million and $8 million.

In Chicago, it would take major financial incentives from the city — that means millions of taxpayers’ funds — to create the affordable housing sought under La Salle Street Reimagined.

“Equity is not achieved on its own,” Samir Mayekar, Lightfoot’s deputy mayor for economic and neighborhood development, told Sun-Times business reporter David Roeder. “The free market will not lead to affordable housing downtown without the city’s involvement.”

But creating a street with varied uses, functions and income types is the better route for the corridor’s future. If executed correctly, La Salle could function like a real neighborhood, rather than an encampment for the well-off or the “monoculture” — as city Planning Department Commissioner Maurice Cox Cox puts it — of businesses, banks and financial institutions it is currently.

“If we were to do nothing, we would probably see the future of La Salle as a high-end residential street,” Cox said. “We see a real opportunity as a mixed-income, mixed-use residential street.”

La Salle Street and downtown are key

La Salle isn’t the only major downtown street in need of revitalization through new uses.

The Chicago Loop Alliance is leading Elevate State, an effort to re-envision State Street. And the city’s premiere shopping district, North Michigan Avenue, is looking to battle back from vacancies, the pandemic-related economic downtown and a seemingly unending series of robberies and smash-and-grabs at its high-profile stores.

All of these efforts are worth watching. This editorial board enthusiastically supports redevelopment across Chicago, but efforts that seek to strengthen the city’s core are just as critical.

Downtown and the central area, though a bit battered, are still the economic engine and lifeblood of the city. And anything that keeps them vital is good for all of Chicago.

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