OFFICE OF THE MAYOR
CITY OF CHICAGO
LORI E. LIGHTFOOT
MAYOR
EXECUTIVE ORDER NO. 2023-13
WHEREAS, the City of Chicago's LaSalle Street corridor in the Loop, despite having many historically significant buildings, proximity to all modes of public transit, and with workplaces from every level of government, has experienced unprecedented levels of office vacancy rates of almost 5 million square feet, the highest of any downtown submarket; and
WHEREAS, the City of Chicago's LaSalle Street corridor in the Loop has the highest retail vacancy of any downtown submarket with a 36% retail vacancy rate; and
WHEREAS, the City of Chicago has the fastest growing downtown in the U.S., but downtown still only accounts for 7% of the city's residents and there are only 9 legally restricted Affordable Requirements Ordinance units enforced by the City of Chicago in the Loop along with an overall city wide shortage of 100,000 affordable housing units; and
WHEREAS, Mayor Lori E. Lightfoot announced the LaSalle Street Reimagined Initiative on September 26, 2022, which includes four interrelated components: i) an Invitation for Proposals to convert underutilized office buildings into mixed-income residential uses with at least 30% affordable housing units; ii) revitalization of LaSalle's streetscape and public realm; iii) funding grants via the Small Business Improvement Fund to eligible locally-owned businesses; and iv) continued support for temporary and permanent art and activation; and
WHEREAS, as part of the Invitation for Proposals, nine submissions were received on December 23, 2022, worth over $1.2 billion in total project costs for over 2,200 new residential units, including 790 affordable units; and
WHEREAS, after a public meeting was held on March 2, 2023 to share the proposals and to gather feedback along with a thorough review of the proposals by an evaluation committee. Mayor Lori E. Lightfoot announced the selection of three finalist teams on March 28th, 2023, for adaptive re...
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