November 1, 2025 – Tom Tresser
Prologue to a Scam
In 2021 I started to see articles and editorials calling out the increasingly high levels of vacancy in the Loop and LaSalle Street office towers. I think one of the first was a Crain’s Chicago Business piece headlined “Downtown office vacancy sets another record high.” I have a file folder one inch thick crammed with articles from multiple cities documenting this trend – a result of overbuilt office towers, COVID, and changes in ways we do retail. I predicted that all this was leading up to a case for the public to bail out the developers and that we would soon see public subsidies for the conversions of these failing office towers into high-end residential use. Mayor Lori Lightfoot launched exactly that initiative in September of 2022 (see below). In October of 2022 the Chicago Sun-Times ran a editorial “To live and buy on LaSalle Street: Plan for housing, other uses of financial district is worth watching.” The drumbeat has not stopped. In July of 2025 Crain’s proclaimed “Office demand freefall resumes as downtown vacancy reaches a new record high.” The graphic below is from the 2021 Crain’s piece.
I could see in my mind’s eye, Horatio, the summoning of the consultants, the media spinners, the planners, and the obedient folks at the Department of Planning and Development. I just wondered how much the developers were going to grab.
Now we know.
The Bail Out is Unveiled
On Thursday night, September 25, 2025 I attended the unveiling of the draft of the Central Area Plan for 2045. It was held in the lobby area of the Field Building at 135 S. LaSalle Street, an art deco gem built in 1934. It is 45-stories high and was designed by the noted firm of Graham, Anderson, Probst & White. It was built by the estate of department store founder Marshall Field and was declared a Chicago Landmark in 1994.
I noted that a major theme of the new plan is the conversion of Loop and LaSalle office towers into residential use. Chicago’s taxpayers are subsidizing this work and will continue to do so for decades. Tax Increment Financing District dollars – property taxes – will be used heavily to transfer public wealth into private pockets.
In a city press release dated September 26, 2022 and headlined “LaSalle Street Initiative Aims to Revitalize, Repurpose Financial District Buildings,” we read “Pervasive commercial vacancies along LaSalle Street in the Loop could be revitalized with new storefront businesses and more than 1,000 new homes, including 300 affordable units, through an Invitation for Proposals (IFP) announced by Mayor Lori E. Lightfoot today as part of the City’s LaSalle Reimagined initiative…Public resources to help implement the initiative’s goals are expected to include federal tax credits, Cook County property tax incentives, Tax Increment Financing, PACE financing, Low Income Housing Tax Credits and other tools…”
There are six projects approved so far. Including a massive subsidy to convert the very building the meeting was being held in! The plan is to give the developers $98 million free cash money for the conversion of the Field Building – that’s almost $100 million that will NOT go to the schools, and operations of our local government – $56 million of which should be going to the public schools. The building will hold 386 units. They claim that 116 will be “affordable.” That works out to a public subsidy of $844,828 per affordable unit.
At that ridiculous price, for affordable housing. we are better off simply buying $100 million worth of underwater homes and just GIVING them to the people who originally owned them or giving them away, via a lottery, to fust time homeowners from the community. Doing this would allow the city bestow home ownership on people in need – giving them equity, security, and realizing real housing justice.
In 2018, Chicago has the most under-water homes in America. This was most prevalent in our communities of color. In 2024 the zip code 60649 (the near South Side along the lake, below 62nd Street) had the 5th largest share of seriously underwater homes in America!
The new Central Area Plan 2045 released a very slick 134 page booklet and on page 5 we read, “Despite its assets, Chicago’s central area faces numerous challenges: housing is unaffordable for many Chicagoans, office employee attendance is still recovering to pre-pandemic levels, and retail and commercial vacancies are at all-time highs, among other issues. The 2045 plan is needed to further cultivate a downtown that is a thriving global economic center, a welcoming area with opportunities to live, work and play for all Chicagoans, and a top tourist destination.”
The plan lists a number of telling objectives – that all mask TIF subsidies:
The number one recommendation for the core area called “Housing & Neighborhoods” was this:“Support public-private partnerships to convert underutilized or vacant office space to residential uses for all income levels, ages, and backgrounds.” Here is the corresponding poster they displayed:
And who is listed as major authors of this plan, besides the city staff at the Department of Planning? The list is on pages 108 and 109 (see pdf below). Two of the main consultants stand out. There are six people listed fromSB Friedman Development Advisors. They proudly proclaim “The firm has led the establishment of over 75 TIF districts in multiple states under multiple statutes, and has also assisted communities in making “major” and “minor” amendments to existing TIF districts.” Friedman operated the city’s local business grant program – funded via TIFs – for decades. They are often hired by city governments, including ours, to create the documentation to justify and launch a TIF district. The other heavyweight are the five people from Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the globally famous architecture and planning firm. “Since our founding in 1936, SOM has been designing the future. From the first modernist office building in New York City to supertall towers that have redefined city skylines, our firm has been responsible for some of the most significant architectural and engineering achievements in modern history.” Among a forest of projects and buildings, they designed and built the Sears Tower here. They have had their hand on the planning steering wheel here for over fifty years. Who has built many office buildings here and elsewhere subsidized by our public dollars? And who WILL be building new projects using the money liberated by this plan? They will.
So, there you have it. The backroom work of consultants, marketers, developers, architects, and bankers have set in motion a plan that will send hundreds of millions of public dolalrs directly into the pockets of clouted, mostly white, men.
But the reality is plain to see – just step outside of where the unveiling was taking place. Here is the signage on the street outside…
Take a look at the approved budget for this one project (of 6 approved) –see how massive it is:
You have some folks making a TON of money of this one project – including developer/lawyer/architect fees of $7.5 million, and loan and interest payments (straight to Wall Street) of $3.2 million. And then there is the $137 million hard costs – for construction materials (bricks, concrete, pipes, machinery, etc.) PLUS the construction labor – and you must ask – WHO will be building this thing? Mostly white, conservative construction unions who have long held back women and people of color (who mostly live where?) and who give huge campaign contributions to our elected officials.
This is not the way to spend hundreds of millions of our precious public dollars – subsidizing developers to convert underused downtown buildings while they throwing only some crumbs to the communities that need economic development the most.
Reviewing the data at the Illinois Sunshine database, I discovered that the owner/developer of the 135 S. LaSalle Street Project, John O’Donnell, the architect is Cordwell, Buenz Architects and the project attorney DLA Piper, have donated $1,132,691, to local elected officials, including $139,750 to 42nd Ward Alderman Reilly, $29,625 to Alderman Hopkins, and $89,650 to candidates for mayor. And that does not include other principals, VPs, or the General Contractor. This may be business as usual for corrupt Illinois and Chicago politics. But I find it infuriating. Download a spreadsheet of campaign contributions from just a few of the principals leading the 135 S. LaSalle Street project.
I have been researching TIF abuse since 2012 (see www.tifreports.com) and this is Standard Operating Procedure. My research has uncovered over $842 MILLION in public subsidies for Loop area office towers and private development projects over the past 25 years. In that timeframe, Chicago’s developers have contributed millions of dollars to local elected officials and campaigns for public office.
Not one penny of all this TIF money has found or will find its way to the community. And now, it seems, with great fanfare, hundreds of millions of public dollars are destined to flow to wealthy, clouted, white developers to convert buildings in the LaSalle Street area. Remember, the real estate and development industries have made hundreds of billions of dollars of profits over the decades. If they overbuilt – a problem, ironically triggered by the free money made available via the TIF program, it is not our problem to bail them out.
Tom TresserNovember 1, 2025
From Crain’s, October 6, 2025 – “The downtown office glut is masking a competitive scrum for trophy space.” Danney Ecker reports “Companies have never had more choices for downtown office space than they do today. Unless they’re looking for nice workspace in a location where people want to be…While the direct vacancy rate among all downtown office space stood at a record-high 24.3% midway through the year, a sizable chunk of that availablility is outmoded or owned by landlords grappling with troubled debt and not in position to compete for new tenants, according to data from real estate services firm Colliers. Peeling back the data to include only top-tier, or Class A, office buildings, the share of available space is just 19%, and falls to 11.4% for so-called “trophy” buildings — think glass-and-steel towers built in the last 20 years. Narrow it further to space in those high-end buildings on the 25th floor or higher, and Colliers research shows the vacancy rate is just 8.4%.” Bottom line – let the market work and DO NOT use the people’s money to bail out wealthy clouted white developers.
From Crain’s, October 29, 2025 –“Office demand in the suburbs just had a big quarter.” The reporter notes “The suburban office vacancy rate is up from 31.4% one year ago and 22.1% at the beginning of the public health crisis. The rate has set new high marks for 19 consecutive quarters…But the last three months brought a piece of welcome news the likes of which building owners haven’t seen since the public health crisis rocked their business. Net absorption, which measures the change in the amount of leased and occupied space compared with the prior period, rose by more than 216,000 square feet. It was only the third quarter the metric was positive since 2022 and marked the best quarter of demand since the end of 2019, according to JLL.” Let the famous market do its thing. NO PUBLIC BAIL OUTS FOR REAL ESTATE MOGULS.
From Mutli-Housing News, September 17, 2025 – “Chicago Conversion Project Gets $90M” – I would be smiling, too! “Partners Mavrek and ACRES Commercial Realty Corp. have secured more than $90 million in financing and are moving ahead with an office-to-residential conversion at 65 E. Wacker Place in Chicago, where they will create 252 luxury units at the historic 24-story building. McHugh Construction will redevelop the property with a design provided by Pappageorge Haymes Partners. Completion is expected in 2026. Chris Knight, managing director at JLL Capital Markets, represented the development team for the placement of the debt. The financing includes a $62.4 million senior loan from Derby Lane Partners and $11 million loan from Hoyne Savings Bank. The capital stack also includes more than $17 million in federal and state historic tax credits, which were monetized through PNC Bank.” THESE ARE ALL MAJOR REAL ESTATE/FINANCE HOT SHOTS AND THEY ARE THE PEOPLE REALLY RUNNING THIS CITY.
From Crain’s, December 1, 2025 – “Developer seeks $47 million tax break for Loop office-to-residential project” – Christmas is coming early to the clouted and rich developers who are ramping up massive public subsidies for their Loop located office conversion projects! “The developer poised to receive $57 million in taxpayer funds to help turn part of a LaSalle Street office tower into apartments is seeking a separate $47 million property tax incentive for the project. A joint venture of Chicago developer Golub and lender Corebridge Financial this week will ask city planning officials to sign off on a Cook County Class L designation for the 43-story office building at 30 N. LaSalle St., according to an agenda for a Dec. 4 meeting posted online for the Commission on Chicago Landmarks. The tax sweetener is contingent on the City Council formally making the 51-year-old tower a city landmark, a designation that is also slated for consideration by the landmark panel at the meeting…The potential incentive shows the heavy public subsidy developers want to help kick off a new chapter for LaSalle Street and its environs. The historic Loop corridor is plagued with empty office space in outmoded buildings with dim prospects of landing new tenants amid the rise of remote work. Hoping to hasten the Loop’s revival, the city is on track to hand out $317 million in tax-increment financing money to help developers transform such buildings with about 1,800 residential units, including more than 530 affordable ones. Golub and Corebridge are already slated to receive $57 million in TIF for their project.” NO PUBLIC MONEY FOR THESE FAT CATS!
From Urbanize, January 22, 2026 – “City Council Approves $57 Million in TIF for 30 N. LaSalle.” – The march to shower public dollars – boatloads of property tax dollars – on clouted white mega-developers continues. The dust has barely settled on the contentious debate over the city’s 2026 budget – which is full of new taxes and fees for the average Chicagoan – and we trip over ourselves to pour $57 million into the pockets of Eugene and Lee Golub, whose company is doing the conversion of 30 N. LaSalle, built in 1974, into high-end residential use. According to Family Business Magazine from 2019, “Golub and its affiliates have developed, owned, leased or managed more than 50 million square feet of commercial and residential mixed-use properties. Golub currently has about $4 billion of assets under management and is developing projects from West Palm Beach, Fla., to San Francisco — as well as in Central Europe.” The current owner of the building is American General Life Insurance (AIG), which had 2025 revenues of $27.4 billion. They purchased this building in 2023 after a foreclosure for $34.7 million – so the conversion subsidy WE are giving them isabout $30 million MORE than they paid just three years ago. Could I get a sweet deal like that??
Supposedly some 105 units in this conversion will be devoted to “affordable housing” – I am a huge skeptic here. The city NEVER polices these provisions – but, even if this were to happen, we would be doing a $542,857 subsidy per unit. At that outrageous cost, we could simply buy up all the homes underwater in the Black neighborhoods and GIVE them to either their original owners or new owners via a lottery. But Chicago will never do that because poor and working-class people don’t have the clout to get that done. A very brief review of the Illinois Sunshine database reveals that the principals of the deal – Golub Real Estate – just picking three people: Eugene and Lee Golub and President Michael Newman are vigorous campaign donors to Chicago’s political leaders – those three have made 66 donations to local pols totaling $170,750 with some of the most recent gifts given to Alderman Reilly of the 42nd Ward. Where is the reporting on this? Where is the outrage?
