CHICAGO | Economic & Business Development

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by sixo1

Some positivity about the Loop:

- "[...]hotels now beating out 2019 numbers[...]"

- "[...]Chicago is now leading the nation in office occupancy recovery; that is outside of Texas where the pandemic was handled a little differently."

Source.

Sometimes I want to whip out my camera and film. Tired of people saying the area is "dead." Obviously it's not pre pandemic but it's not dead. It picked up around 10-12 months ago especially.

[twister244]

Originally Posted by marothisu

Sometimes I want to whip out my camera and film. Tired of people saying the area is "dead." Obviously it's not pre pandemic but it's not dead. It picked up around 10-12 months ago especially.

Agreed - Especially this past week with the string of 80+ degree days. The city felt full of energy.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by marothisu

Tired of people saying the area is "dead." Obviously it's not pre pandemic but it's not dead. It picked up around 10-12 months ago especially.

people who are still claiming that the loop is "dead" either don't go there often, or at the least are just talking relative to the before times.

i recently took a family road trip to another midwest city where we stayed in a downtown hotel from a saturday to a wednesday. now that place was an example of an actually dead downtown.

we walked entire blocks in the heart of downtown at like 9:00am on a tuesday morning without seeing a single other person. it was a little spooky; felt almost zombie apocoplase at times.

like you said, the loop is certainly not back to what it once was, but it's light years from being actually dead these days.

[pip]

Its been almost a year since I have been in Chicago, since the beginning of July. Last time I was downtown was April 2022. I'm going back Thursday for a couple of weeks. I'm looking forward to seeing areas more busy and to see the overall changes.

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by pip

Its been almost a year since I have been in Chicago, since the beginning of July. Last time I was downtown was April 2022. I'm going back Thursday for a couple of weeks. I'm looking forward to seeing areas more busy and to see the overall changes.

My company and many others are on a Tuesday - Thursday in office schedule. I have no idea what Monday and Friday are like, but I assume not as busy. We had some amazing weather the last week but it's turned. Hoping when you are here the weather is at least decent.

I was out on Clark St in Lincoln Park for a short bit yesterday. Back before I moved to NYC, I used to hang out there and Lakeview East a bit on weekends. Maybe it was different in like 2019 when I wasn't hanging out there, but there's way more people on these streets these days it seems than back in the day, at least on decent weather days.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by marothisu

My company and many others are on a Tuesday - Thursday in office schedule. I have no idea what Monday and Friday are like, but I assume not as busy.

i'm in-office in the loop 5 days/week.

mondays are a bit slower than tues - thursday.

and fridays are far and away the slowest.

[tintinex]

I took some friends visiting from Detroit for a day in the loop and west loop this past saturday. Every bar and restaurant we went in had a wait, this was even more accentuated in the west loop. every place was full, all patios were at capacity and there were so many people walking and in the establishments that it felt amazing. My friends were really impressed with the west loop and said they can't wait to come back and explore it quite a bit more

[sixo1]

I thought this was interesting. According to the Hachman Index, in 2021, Illinois was the 4th most economically diverse state in the U.S. (In 2018, Illinois was 6th.) You can see that some state economies actually became less diverse over this time period, such as Washington State.

Source (2018).

Source (2021).

[pip]

Originally Posted by pip

Its been almost a year since I have been in Chicago, since the beginning of July. Last time I was downtown was April 2022. I'm going back Thursday for a couple of weeks. I'm looking forward to seeing areas more busy and to see the overall changes.

Chicago hasn't disappointed. Got in town early afternoon today. Took the Blue line which was fast, I was surprised, and just about standing room only, with no crappy people anywhere. I didn't see any of the homelessness in the terminals or on the way to the trains which I heard about. Got off the Blue line at Belmont to take a bus but the busses were full so I took an Uber instead. Lakeview was busy. The weather certainly helped but what a great first impression today. Also it was nice to be back in my place

[SamInTheLoop]

^ ^^ Guys, these cheery first person accounts are completely at odds with the consensus of extremist libertarian tech billionaires and their social media playthings, as well as the entire right wing propaganda ecosystem, so I'm afraid I'll have to call bs on both of ya!

[Vlajos]

Originally Posted by pip

Chicago hasn't disappointed. Got in town early afternoon today. Took the Blue line which was fast, I was surprised, and just about standing room only, with no crappy people anywhere. I didn't see any of the homelessness in the terminals or on the way to the trains which I heard about. Got off the Blue line at Belmont to take a bus but the busses were full so I took an Uber instead. Lakeview was busy. The weather certainly helped but what a great first impression today. Also it was nice to be back in my place

Mayor Lightfoot had the homeless at O'Hare removed

https://blockclubchicago.org/2023/03...said%20Tuesday.

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by Vlajos

Mayor Lightfoot had the homeless at O'Hare removed

https://blockclubchicago.org/2023/03...said%20Tuesday.

It sounds like they were more referring to the reports that you can't ride a train line in Chicago without having a weirdo on it and that the cars are empty (because the city is dead of course..). Back a decade ago when homeless people weren't really at O'Hare, I'd ride it to and from the airport enough with weirdos. Whether they're kicked out of O'Hare or not isn't the point.

[Randomguy34]

Office vacancy in Fulton Market in Q1 2023 is now 10.6%, compared to the rest of downtown being around 20%.

Fulton Market continues to be the outlier in Chicago's dormant office market
https://www.bizjournals.com/chicago/...areket-q1.html

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

i'm in-office in the loop 5 days/week.

mondays are a bit slower than tues - thursday.

and fridays are far and away the slowest.

Fridays tend to have a bit more tourist traffic, for obvious reasons, and they tend to walk around at all hours, not just morning/afternoon rush and the lunch hour. So Fridays aren't zombie apocalypse either...

[Tom In Chicago]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

i'm in-office in the loop 5 days/week.

mondays are a bit slower than tues - thursday.

and fridays are far and away the slowest.

Yeah. . . I'm in the "office" 5 days a week. . . Mondays I'm out in Oakbrook Terrace and Tuesday through Fridays I'm downtown in the light industrial datacenter gulag at Polk and Jefferson. . . since I drive through the Loop to get there every day I'm seeing basically the same pattern you're noticing. . . as others have said, Fridays does have more tourist traffic especially around Michicagn Ave and Millennium Park. . .

. . .

[twister244]

Originally Posted by Randomguy34

Office vacancy in Fulton Market in Q1 2023 is now 10.6%, compared to the rest of downtown being around 20%.

Fulton Market continues to be the outlier in Chicago's dormant office market
https://www.bizjournals.com/chicago/...areket-q1.html

That's interesting, and may bode well for getting mixed use projects off the ground there. With that said however, given the overall situation with CRE, it's gonna be a while before we see massive office buildings going up again.

[bnk]

Not good.


https://www.chicagobusiness.com/fina...-chicago-miami

May 01, 2023 07:15 PM UPDATED 22 HOURS AGO

Guggenheim Partners readying move to Miami

GREG HINZ


Another pillar of Chicago’s financial community is headed toward the exits — and apparently has quietly slashed its Chicago workforce in recent months. Multiple industry sources report that Guggenheim Partners, an investment firm which has employed roughly 1,000 people in the West Loop, is on the verge of deciding to move its headquarters to Miami, the Florida

...

[sentinel]

Not good, but this interest in Miami as a new financial hub is a headscratcher to me, frankly. I think marothisu is better equipped to provide more clarity, but I personally do not know why Miami is suddenly very appealing:

- Is it a copycat effect from Ken Griffin/Shitadel making a very vocal hq relocation there? And even that relocation was in large part because Ken Griffin has personally relocated to Palm Beach...the narrative that violence in Chicago was the primary motivator is a red-herring, considering Miami is comparable to Chicago in terms of violent crime, and worse in some metrics.

- In terms of servicing wealthy/big money private investors, there are probably comparable numbers of multimillionaires in Chicago as there are in Miami, and if I was a very wealthy Chicago-based investor, why would I stick with my investment team when they relocate a thousand miles away, when there are other private wealth managers locally that can help me manage my money just as well?

- Is it because Miami is very close to offshore tax havens like the Cayman Islands?

I have family ties to the Miami area and have spent a lot of time there over the past 20 years. I was in Ft. Lauderdale a week after the historic rainfall and flooding last month, and for the first time ever, I had a strange and sad realization that the entire SE Florida region is not sustainable long-term, in terms of both a habitability and infrastructure perspective. There is a lot of construction still going on both in Ft. Lauderdale and especially Miami, but even after a week+, there were still flooding issues in and around downtown Ft. Lauderdale. If that historic rain event had happened 25 miles south, Miami would still be dealing with the repercussions, even 3 weeks after. Point being, I don't know why there is such a massive influx of capital in that area, especially related to new real estate development, when the entire area is an insurance nightmare - I spoke to a few locals that live in single-family neighborhoods and a majority said their homes were flooded and their insurance was refusing to cover the damages. We even drove across the state the Gulf coast for a day trip, and saw similar new construction, especially single family homes, both CMU and poured-in-place solid concrete walls. But all these homes are still at sea level/not elevated above where they would be safe if a hurricane event hit that area, so flooding is still guaranteed, even if your home is still intact.
Then a week ago, another residential highrise in Miami-proper had a forced evacuation because of inspection issues that raised concerns about its structural integrity.

I understand fully that Florida in general is very appealing because of the weather, diversity, and no state income tax. I personally also enjoy visiting there and am very fond of the region. Nevertheless, the push for Miami as a financial powerhouse is both perplexing and seemingly ignores a lot of pressing issues that will need to be addressed sooner than most people think.

[Chisouthside]

I was curious so I looked at their open positions and alot of still listed for Chicago and New York and some of them technical. The article mentioned that they were leaving a unit in Chicago, but I imagine alot of the execs are moving or have already moved to Miami.

[Klippenstein]

It's probably more political than anything and like Citadel primarily in name since many employees are not relocating. Don't lose track of the bigger picture.