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City Hall provides support to building owners to convert vacant office floors to residential units

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Published  September 26, 2022 4:49pm CDT
Loop
FOX 32 Chicago

City Hall providing support to building owners to convert vacant office floors to residential units

Many office buildings in the LaSalle Street Financial District emptied out during the pandemic. Now, some landlords are considering converting them to residential units.

CHICAGO - Many office buildings in the LaSalle Street Financial District emptied out during the pandemic. 

Now, some landlords are considering converting them to residential units.

City Hall is offering taxpayer dollars to developers willing to make 30 percent of their units affordable for people of low and moderate income.

"Through the LaSalle Street Reimagined Initiative, we will provide support for building owners to convert vacant office floors to residential uses. We will provide grants to locally owned dining and cultural businesses to reactivate vacant storefronts. We will improve our public realm to make this a world-class street again," said Ald. Brendan Reilly (42nd ward).

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Ald. Reilly acknowledged the concerns about rising crime downtown, but City Hall hopes for a boost from the state of Illinois' sale of its Thompson Center at Washington and LaSalle to Google. 

The tech giant says it will move 3,000 workers into that building — people who may be interested in a home nearby that would enable them to walk to work.

"Downtown is the engine that fuels the rest of our city.  It's absolutely critically important that we make sure that we continue to do everything that we can to make sure that downtown businesses are supported and that they thrive," said Mayor Lori Lightfoot.