Twenty years ago, Millennium Park transformed Chicago by bringing more people than ever across the Chicago River to the Loop.
Now the Chicago Loop Alliance, also hitting its 20-year anniversary, is looking at how it can further the Loop’s evolution into a vibrant urban corridor.
During its annual meeting Friday, the member-based business organization shared plans for how it will continue to activate and evolve the downtown corridor, including an expansion of one of its hallmark programs, Sundays on State. The program started after the pandemic in an effort to revive the Loop’s economy and increase foot traffic, and it’s expected to take place twice this year, Sep. 7 and Oct. 5. Last year, the two Sundays on State events generated $6.5 million in economic impact.
“It’s a competitive landscape out there,” said Ty Tabing, the Chicago Loop Alliance’s former executive director. “It takes resources and vision and just recognizing that you need to keep at this because cities change. … It’s a competitive landscape where if you’re not reinventing yourself, you’re really falling behind.”
A new “month-long celebration of autumn” will also take place in October, featuring “a spectacle of fall festivities,” said Charles Smith, Chicago Loop Alliance’s vice chair. Events will include a new adults-only pub crawl, Lurking the Loop, on Oct. 25 and the Better Cities Film Festival Oct. 9-11. The 11th annual Arts in the Dark parade will also take place that month, Smith said.
“The fall is Chicago’s most underrated — if short — season,” Smith said. And he said a month of programming will help people make the most of it.
The organization pointed to other big happenings in the Loop that will help increase foot traffic and evolve it into a live, work and play neighborhood. It included the ongoing redevelopment of the James R. Thompson Center, future home to Google’s Chicago headquarters, and the soon-to-kickoff LaSalle Corridor Revitalization projects that will turn emptying office buildings into new apartments, many of them affordable.
The new State/Lake L station, featuring a glass canopy, will open in 2025.
Michael Reschke, one of the developers behind the Thompson Center’s overhaul, was among the eight new members inducted into the Chicago Loop Alliance and Foundation’s board of directors. The members include leaders in real estate development, finance, advertising, hospitality, fashion and design.
“Google had a choice,” Smith said. “They chose correctly. When they chose the Thompson Center, they chose the Loop.”
The organization also shared some of its successes and its 2024 impact report.
Among the report’s highlights are a 10% increase in Loop foot traffic, compared to the previous year, and a jump in attendees for its annual Arts in the Dark parade from 56,325 in 2023 to 100,000 last year.
Loop Alliance President and CEO Michael Edwards told the Sun-Times the organization is seeing foot traffic nearing pre-pandemic levels.
“My big takeaway is that downtown is back,” Edwards said. “We are struggling with return to office, which is affecting property values. However, properties are starting to trade, which means they’re being purchased … which will enable those folks to put more money into the amenities. These buildings will become more attractive.”
Hotel occupancy is still lagging. The organization said hotel occupancy increased only 3% year over year.
Edwards said business travel is still behind pre-pandemic levels and putting a hamper on overall hotel occupancy rates. But with more programming around in 2025 — like the centennial of Route 66, which starts in Chicago — he’s hopeful numbers will be up.