CHICAGO—JLL made a statement last week by choosing to host its Chicago 2025 forecast event in Venue West at 221 N. Paulina St. on the Near West Side. Normally, gatherings like this draw people to downtown hotels, one most have been to several times. But the Chicago-based firm wanted to highlight the potential of this area, which lies just a few blocks west of 1KFulton, the former cold storage building that developer Sterling Bay transformed into an office complex anchored by Google. And participants on a late afternoon panel made it clear they felt the city can generate enough energy and demand to eventually kickstart development in many neighborhoods.
Keith Largay, managing director, JLL, led the discussion, and began by asking Andrea Zopp, president and chief executive officer of World Business Chicago, what the many corporations she speaks with found desirable about the Chicago region. She replied that above all, companies both large and small talk about access to talent. And most believe Chicago provides it.
“It's a big draw for us,” she said. Other cities find it tough to compete with Chicago's stellar collection of colleges and universities, many of which have downtown residences for students, giving them the opportunity to live within the CBD. And the quality of life they find there, and in surrounding neighborhoods, helps keep students here even after they graduate.
Will Murphy, managing partner of CEDARst Cos. and another panelist, is in a good position to assess what young people want in terms of their quality of life. His firm has a focus on multifamily development, including so-called micro-units popular among younger renters. What they want, he says, perhaps more than a vast amount of personal living space, is access to amenities, both within the building and from their surrounding location, “and they want it immediately.” The micro-units developed by CEDARst are typically around 350 square feet, but the company compensates for that by also providing an array of amenities including a rooftop pool, coffee shop, food services.
A desire for amenities and experiences that permeate a neighborhood also drives the office market. John Gavin, principal, Sterling Bay, told the several hundred attendees about developing 1KFulton. A few years ago, that area, much like the streets around Venue West today, felt a little out of the way. And Google had questions. Officials from the tech giant first wanted to know, for example, if the neighborhood had a hotel.
Concerns such as that are why successful developments in new areas need to also foster hospitality, retail, restaurants, and other amenities. But in a way, “it's not a dramatic departure,” Gavin says. Back in the 1970s, companies wanted to have control over their environments, which helps explain why many chose suburban office campuses. Now that talent has moved downtown, businesses will follow, but still want to influence their immediate surroundings.
Gavin is optimistic that the city will continue to see new development spread west of the Loop into areas like Fulton Market. And he believes that won't require office workers to change their habits much. For generations, many commuters exiting the train lines that feed downtown have turned to the left, or east, to reach their workplaces. “We're not asking them to do anything dramatically different; just take a right.”
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Brian J. Rogal
Brian J. Rogal is a Chicago-based freelance writer with years of experience as an investigative reporter and editor, most notably at The Chicago Reporter, where he concentrated on housing issues. He also has written extensively on alternative energy and the payments card industry for national trade publications.
