Chicago Leaders Plan to Revive State Street's Future

City and business leaders packed the Macy’s Walnut Room on Tuesday for a sold-out summit on State Street’s future, arguing that reviving the corridor is essential not just for the Loop but for Chicago’s financial health citywide.

The gathering, organized by the Chicago Loop Alliance, brought together panelists who laid out a series of strategies: leaning on nearby universities, improving walkability and street safety, increasing density, and building experiences that give people reasons to show up and keep coming back.

“Let’s create experiences. Let’s create memories. Let’s create careers. Let’s create educational opportunities and reasons for us to heal, reasons for us to get back together again,” said Rich Gamble, interim CEO of the Chicago Loop Alliance. “The reason why you’re hearing complaints about property taxes all throughout the city is because this right here is the economic engine for the entire city. We are everyone’s neighborhood because we affect everyone’s neighborhood. We employ. We educate. We entertain. We house. The Loop is just a critically important place.”

The conversation echoed one that started more than four decades ago. In 1982, the city and the Chicago Central Area Committee concluded that a formal analysis of State Street was needed to keep the retail corridor viable. That process produced the 1983 Central Area Plan, a document that called for more transportation investment, more housing, and included the earliest concept of what eventually became Millennium Park, then referred to as Lakefront Gardens.

The fact that Chicago is still asking the same core questions about State Street in 2026 reflects both the street’s stubborn resilience and its stubborn challenges.

Stone Real Estate principal John Vance offered a blunt assessment of what the pandemic did to the corridor. Since 2020, more than 15 retailers have vacated State Street, including Anthropologie, Express, H&M, and Urban Outfitters. Vance tied most of those departures directly to the remote work shift that the pandemic accelerated, draining foot traffic that once made State Street viable for national brands.

His description of the corridor’s collapse was vivid. “If a movie were to be made about COVID in the Loop and its effect on State Street, the opening scene would be some kind of Joker, literally wearing a Joker mask, setting ablaze a Chicago police vehicle on North State Street,” Vance said. “That would accurately describe the environment of State Street coming undone.”

But Vance also pointed to early signs of recovery. Barnes and Noble and Gap have announced plans to open on State Street this year, a signal that at least some national brands see renewed potential in the corridor. Vance said those commitments should “give us confidence.”

The summit’s focus on universities as anchors reflects a broader strategic shift happening in urban corridors across the country. Institutions like DePaul and Columbia College Chicago already have significant footprints in the Loop. If city leaders can structure agreements that draw students, faculty, and university-affiliated programming onto State Street on a consistent basis, that creates a more predictable daytime population. Retail and restaurants follow reliable foot traffic.

Walkability and safety came up repeatedly as preconditions for everything else. No experience economy works if people don’t feel comfortable getting there and moving around once they arrive. That means street-level design, lighting, transit access, and public safety presence all need to function together rather than as separate bureaucratic concerns.

The density argument connects to housing. More people living in or near the Loop means more organic foot traffic throughout the week, not just during business hours or weekend events. The 1983 plan called for more housing downtown. That call is still being made today.

State Street’s history cuts both ways. It was once legitimately one of the great commercial streets in America, the subject of a Cole Porter song and a destination that drew shoppers from across the region. That history creates a reference point worth reaching for. It also creates nostalgia that can distort realistic expectations about what a 21st-century retail corridor actually looks like.

Originally reported by chicago.suntimes.com.

The leaders in the Walnut Room on Tuesday seemed to understand that distinction. The goal isn’t to restore what existed before. It’s to build something that works now.