-- Connecting the dots between our economy, government and business --
Downtown office vacancy hit a record high for the 14th straight quarter at the end of 2025, capping a year that showed signs of leasing stability but failed to reverse the post-pandemic real estate crisis infecting the city's urban core.
With $162 billion more from taxpayers, couldn’t you deliver a few bond upgrades, too
A largely unasked question is becoming glaring: Is Illinois doing all it should to use artificial intelligence to make government cost less and work better? So far, the evidence says no.
Everybody needs a side hustle these days, and mine is Ukraine, where I am now.
Summary and audio linked here.
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Audio and summary
Time for a billionaire tax!
Oh wait……….there’s no billionaires left.
The growth engine of Illinois.
It’s actually a record low for occupancy, but leave it to the worthless writers at Crain’s to try and polish the Democrats’ turd once again. This is the death spiral of a once-great city, alas.
The 90’s into the 2000’s, what a great time it was to work in the city.
We saw downtown at its finest, never to return to that Golden Age again!
Economics, much like politics, is a kind of literacy—or, in some cases, illiteracy.
2 rounds of BLM rioting/looting/arson
Insane COVID Lockdowns
2 far left incompetent DEI-Hire mayors
A socialist City Council
City government that lurches from crisis to crisis
Downtown crime
Police defunded, demonized, disarmed
Crooked unions with their paws in every pot of money
Business hostile taxes, regulations, and courts
Why would anyone want an office downtown?
No prudent CEO wants an office downtown because of the liability they face if one of their employees gets injured, raped, or murdered.
Good thing that downstate voters and tollway users had to pony up so that CTA/Metra/Pace can continue to move seats as empty as Chicago’s buildings.
If you approved of the way Illinois and Chicago handled the Covid fiasco, don’t complain about the collapse of the Loop economy. In addition, you can’t complain about the shifting of the real estate tax burden from the Loop to the neighborhoods. It was all readily apparent to anybody not a democrat. Life is hard. It is even harder when you’re an idiot.–John Wayne. By definition almost all democrats are idiots. The rest are thieves and traitors.
CPS has bred generations of idiots in Chicago.
How’s that revitalization of downtown Chicago going?
You reap what you sow. Chicago and Illinois have destroyed opportunities for most businesses, and they are leaving for other states, never to be back. They told Ken Griffin not to let the door hit him in the A$$ and many other businesses took that same advice. Now Chicago is the city that let public sector unions and the taxman destroy it.
Downtown won’t return to pre-COVID occupancy levels for one basic reason: workers don’t want to go there anymore. Daytime muggings, stabbings, people getting set on fire on the CTA, or getting hit in the face with a brick. These are all serious deterrents to coming back to the Loop. Adding public housing on LaSalle Street is only going to make things worse. If Chicago’s leadership doesn’t fix this problem in the next few years, downtown occupancy may never come back. A lot of buildings will just sit there getting stale, old, outdated, and undesirable.So where’s the future demand supposed to… Read more »
Remember what Richie M. Daley said,
” If we lose the middle class, we lose the city”.
There is no way to fix it at this point. The money to fix it doesn’t exist, and the people in power are really dumb. Doom loop.
The two buildings that Crains discusses at the end of the article were completely glossed over. In particular, the Blue Star property mortgage was purchased from the lender for $14 million, while the actual note was close to $40 million. That doesn’t seem to justify a stable real estate market. Call it what it is. It is because we have complete buffoons running the city of Chicago and the state that don’t know the first thing about fiscal responsibility. It is additionally ironic that the massive spending by FJB caused inflation to rise, which also caused mortgage rates to rise,… Read more »
Be aware that the occupancy rates reported here are “legal occupancy,” which is how much space is leased out. Actually usage, which is also commonly reported, is different, currently estimated to be about 55% of pre-Covid levels. https://www.kastle.com/safety-wellness/getting-america-back-to-work/
The city that worked.
55% usage of the 71.8% of leased space. It’s over. The Loop had a great 150 year run. But every City at some point must decline. Chicago will struggle onward for decades to come. What remains of the Loop will be completely forgotten by the time of our grandchildren’s grandchildren, nothing but a distant memory, as remote to them as the Great Chicago Fire is to us today.
Not to be picky, but that source I cited is actually 55% of pre-Covid entries and exits based on security card swipes.
The state of actual usage today would predict the future of the commercial real estate market. The amount of space actually used is an indication of future lease demand. I suspect the situation is not positive,
Yes, for sure. As those leases come up for renewal they will be cut back. As they get cut back, assessments will drop, lowering the taxes they pay, which gets pushed onto everybody else.
Many of the historical buildings in the Loop have huge maintenance bills just to keep them running, like expensive facade maintenance.
If the lease incomes keep dropping there will be no money left to maintain the buildings and we will see some famous buildings fall into disrepair. It’s an inevitable consequence of the doom loop.