LaSalle ‘High Line’ not right answer to solving exodus from Central Loop
Beware the urban design flavor of the month.
That warning is worth recalling as Chicago figures out how to deal with a wave of large vacancies that will soon hit central Loop office towers, including those along or around the LaSalle Street canyon — the heart of Chicago’s financial district, often called the Midwest’s Wall Street.
In 1979, as America’s downtowns struggled to meet the challenge of suburban shopping malls, the flavor of the month was the transit mall. Make cities more like suburbs, the thinking went, and they’ll be able to compete. So Chicago cut the number of traffic lanes on State Street from six to two— for buses only — and outfitted the ultrawide sidewalks with trees, flowers and bubbletopped bus shelters.
We all know how that $17 million makeover turned out. In 1996, city officials shelled out another $25 million to undo the bleak, fume-plagued transit mall.
I don’t mean to suggest that all innovative public space designs are doomed to fail. But we need to exercise caution before embracing the latest fashion.
Today, that fashion is New York’s High Line, the
uber-chic former elevated railroad line on Manhattan’s West Side.
Cities everywhere, including Chicago, are trying to duplicate its popularity and avoid its pitfalls, including the gentrification of adjoining neighborhoods.
A recently issued study of the central Loop by commercial real estate brokers Cushman & Wakefield floats the idea of inserting a High Lineinspired elevated walkway through the heart of LaSalle Street. But unlike the High Line or Chicago’s 606 trail, which exude authenticity because they’re built on age-old elevated rail lines, the LaSalle Street walkway would be entirely new — more wanna-be cool than the real thing.
Renderings by a littleknown interior designer, Frank Botello, imagine sinuous pathways that hug the building facades and appear to run the entire length of the canyon, from Wacker Drive on the north to Jackson Street on the south. Pedestrians would climb stairs at the LaSalleWacker intersection to an over-the-street platform that leads to the walkway. In some spots, the walkway would cover the street, shutting off views of the iconic Chicago Board of Trade Building from street level.
Welcome to Lower LaSalle!
The pathway would combat the perception that LaSalle is a stuffy, “old school” street lined by intimidating temples of finance, the study claims. “With thoughtful modification,” it goes on, “LaSalle Street can become the live-work-play nucleus of the Central Loop.”
Sorry, but LaSalle needs help like this like a 401(k) investor needs a stock market crash. It’s radical elective surgery that would mar a singular ensemble of skyscrapers.
The LaSalle Street canyon presents a dazzling array of styles, from the suave Art Deco of the Board of Trade to muscular classicism of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, it’s “the only remaining, cohesive collection” that illustrates the development of Chicago’s downtown core, according to the National Park Service, which monitors the register.
Plop an elevated walkway in this sublime canyon and you would mar the beautifully detailed ground-level facades of LaSalle’s buildings, throwing them into perpetual, Lower Wacker gloom. The street would be rendered virtually unrecognizable.
I could go on, but why bother? The study, titled “What’s Next for Chicago’s Central Loop?” and issued in October, has no official backing. After I raised my objections, its authors beat a hasty retreat and characterized the elevated walkway plan as a mere conversation starter.
So what’s a better response to the central Loop exodus, which has longtime corporate tenants fleeing to shiny new skyscrapers along the Chicago River or entirely new office markets like the Fulton Market district?
First, don’t panic. Some short-term loss of tenants was probably inevitable, though it remains to be seen how quickly the vacant spaces fill up — or don’t. As Eleanor Gorski, who leads the downtown efforts of Chicago’s planning department, told me, city officials purposely expanded high-rise zoning beyond the traditional downtown core so Chicago would have a fresh supply of state-of-the-art office space.
One trend could counteract the dispersal of corporate office tenants: The conversion of aging office buildings to residential use. The number of people living in the greater downtown area now likely exceeds 230,000 — about three-quarters of the entire population of Cincinnati.
In addition, small startups and co-working offices are filling some of the empty space.
Turning office buildings into apartments helps avoid the trap of a financial district that goes dark at 6 p.m.
It spreads activity and energy use through the day, making better use of existing infrastructure. But to achieve such benefits, the downtown needs better amenities for residents, like a big grocery store and open-air cafes, according to the Cushman & Wakefield study.
Chicago architect Gordon Gill, co-author of an award-winning 2011 plan to reduce downtown’s carbon footprint, said: “It’s good to see what the market does.
On the other hand, my suggestion would be to have a strategy: to define the market, not let the market plan for us.”
That’s good advice, particularly because the city’s Central Area Action Plan, adopted under former Mayor Richard M. Daley, is more than 10 years old and was based on the even older 2003 Central Area Plan.
New thinking is needed to confront the realities, risks and priorities of the present: From the environmental threat posed by climate change to calls for downtown housing to be made available to a wide range of income groups, not just those making sixfigure salaries.
Fresh attention also needs to be devoted to tweaking existing public spaces, like Daley Plaza and the other great outdoor plazas along Dearborn Street; they can serve both office workers and residents who want a nice place to sip a latte.
In short, the way to confront the central Loop’s looming vacancies is to build carefully on existing strengths, rather than reach desperately for a hideous quick fix that would destroy one of the city’s great urban spaces.