Mayor Brandon Johnson said Thursday that the city will provide more support for restaurants and stores in the Loop, an area still struggling to fully recover from the pandemic.
Six restaurants, including Ceres Café in the Chicago Board of Trade building and The Roanoke at 135 W. Madison St., will receive grants of up to $250,000 for storefront and interior renovations, marking the first time the city has used the Small Business Improvement Fund to support downtown, Johnson said at the annual meeting of the Chicago Loop Alliance, an advocacy group.
The city will also pay for upgrades at the future site of a downtown museum showcasing the Board of Trade’s history. Other Loop businesses can apply for a new round of funding in September.
“We’re just getting started,” Johnson told the roughly 400 attendees at Convene in Willis Tower.
Most companies have brought workers back to the office for at least a few days per week, and downtown foot traffic is up 22% since 2022, according to a Chicago Loop Alliance report. But Mondays and Fridays can still look sparse, with few customers for street-level businesses, and about one-quarter of downtown’s retail spaces remain vacant.
The mayor has battled with downtown business leaders, most recently over his Bring Chicago Home proposal, which would raise taxes on all property sales of more than $1 million, but said he wants their help to revive the Loop. This spring the city will create a new downtown advisory committee, consisting of 40 members from the business and tourism communities who will help shape an updated plan for the central business district.
Johnson noted that Loop businesses have recently gotten a lot of good news. JPMorgan Chase announced Monday it will launch a multiyear renovation of Chase Tower, its iconic 60-story skyscraper at 10 S. Dearborn St., instead of seeking out new office space for the building’s 7,200 employees. The move follows Google’s 2022 decision to take over the now-empty James R. Thompson Center and transform it into a hub for thousands of well-paid tech workers.
“They believe in the promise of this city,” Johnson said. “I’m always glad people are willing to bet on Chicago.”
Google was committed to a major expansion in Chicago because of the large pool of well-educated workers but was initially reluctant to take over the Helmut Jahn-designed Thompson Center, which for years was plagued by heating and cooling issues, said Quintin Primo, executive chairman of Capri Investment Group, during a question-and answer session at Thursday’s meeting.
But a late-night visit to the 17-story glass-and-steel building, and one glance at its soaring atrium, persuaded company officials, said Primo, who along with commercial real estate veteran Mike Reschke is co-developer of the site.
“Mike and I convinced them this was indeed a Google-quality building,” Primo said.
Its location over downtown’s busiest transit hub was also a plus, he added. And although other high-profile firms such as Boeing and Ken Griffin’s hedge fund Citadel recently moved their headquarters out of Chicago, Google’s decision should cause a much bigger ripple effect, bringing even more business and activity to the Loop.
“The fundamental strengths of Chicago are unassailable,” Primo said.
The venture led by Primo and Reschke will start a floor-by-floor gut rehab of the Thompson Center later this month, and Google plans to start moving in by 2026.
The duo is also behind the redevelopment of the former BMO Harris Bank building at 111 West Monroe St. into hundreds of apartments and a hotel, part of the LaSalle Street Reimagined project. That initiative, launched by former Mayor Lori Lightfoot, aims to transform vacant financial district office space into about 1,000 apartments, including hundreds of affordable units.
“We’re making big bets, and will continue to make big bets on the Loop,” Reschke said.
