Chicago

By ED McMANUS

New life for the loop

IT once was a vibrant place — to work, to shop, to enjoy nightlife.

Then, gradually, it began to fall apart. The nightclubs closed; the theaters started showing trash; the white middle class started shopping elsewhere. The city tried to win back the shoppers by building a sort of mall down State Street, but it was a flop. The news was all bad for years and years. But now, finally, things are looking up. The North Loop Redevelopment Project, little more than some marks on a map for 13 years, is becoming a reality.

It was on June 14, 1973, that the late Mayor Richard J. Daley and top Loop businessmen unveiled the ambitious North Loop project — a plan to raze virtually all the buildings in most of the north half of Chicago's downtown area and replace them with a host of brand-new stores, hotels, apartment buildings, office buildings and theaters. But years passed and the plan, like many plans drafted by many governments, sat on the shelf.

There were innumerable problems: where to find private developers with adequate financing, whether to give the developers tax incentives, what to do about landmark buildings in the area. Developer Arthur Rubloff proposed handling the whole project himself, but he expected all sorts of breaks from the city and didn't want to abide by city guidelines. The Hilton Hotel chain was poised to build a huge hotel in the area that would be the catalyst for other development, but the Cook County assessor in 1981 refused to grant the hotel a tax break, so Hilton backed off.

More time passed and not much happened, but planners in former Mayor Jane Byrne's administration continued to make plans and seek developers, and in February 1983, the month Byrne lost her reelection bid, the city formally invited developers to submit plans for development of a key block in the area: the State-Dearborn-Randolph-Washington block, just west of Marshall Field's department store. Subsequently, the new Harold Washington administration chose a team headed by developer Lawrence Levy to build a $250 million complex in the block, consisting of two office towers and a big shopping center with a 100-foot-high galleria linking State Street to Dearborn. City officials are hoping for city council approval of the plan by summer, but it will take awhile to acquire all the land. Construction of the shopping center and the first office building is expected to begin in 1988.

Last summer, developers came forward with plans for the other two blocks considered by the city to be crucial to the North Loop rebirth, the blocks immediately south of the Chicago River between State and Clark, and tentative city approval was quickly given. In the block west of State a joint venture, which includes the Leo Burnett advertising agency, proposes to build a 40-story office building and a 600-room hotel at a cost of $178 million. If the city council approves, construction may begin by the end of the year. In the next block to the west, a team headed by developer Richard Stein has already won city council approval and is to begin construction this summer on a $152 million office/ apartment complex.

Those are the big projects. Smaller ones in the works are equally exciting. The new State of Illinois Center at Clark and Randolph, of course, has already opened, and just north of it a $110 million transportation center was in the final stages of construction at this writing. The transportation center, featuring airline offices and car rental agencies, is designed to accommodate travelers who take the new elevated rapid transit line from O'Hare International Airport to the Loop.

East of the state building, Greyhound has announced it will soon relocate its bus depot, clearing the way for another office building. On the east side of the Greyhound block, along Dearborn, three movie theaters now are in operation; one of them recently stopped showing X-rated films. The city hopes to convert the three into live-performance theaters, to be run by a nonprofit corporation.

Rehabilitation is already under way on the landmark Chicago Theater on State Street, which also will become a live theater. The owners of the theater were about to tear it down last year when a coalition of investors talked them into selling it. A group of architects has proposed turning the alley that leads from the Chicago Theater to the Dearborn theaters into a glass-enclosed walkway with shops on either side. A new parking garage and an ABC television studio are slated to the north of the walkway.

What this all adds up to is new life for the Loop. It's happening on a piecemeal basis, contrary to Mayor Daley's original massive plan. But the bottom line is that it's happening. And with all the turmoil on other fronts in Chicago, it's nice to be able to report some good news for a change.

May 1986/Illinois Issues/43