“Downtown Chicago’s two most iconic shopping streets are flagging, struggling to reinvent themselves in the wake of the pandemic and the rise of ecommerce. While Team Culture envisions downtown as a vast Cultural Stadium, State Street and Michigan Avenue merit special attention: They are the central corridors of the city, places from which the street life of downtown emanates, and where both lifelong Chicagoans and “experiential collectors” determine the vitality of the city.
“There’s talk of street-level updates, like Gensler’s Michigan Avenue proposal or the Elevate State initiative, but beyond more sidewalk cafés, better walkability and new places to linger, the spaces that line these streets need to be reimagined.
“Much like Lou Raizin searched the world for ideas for the Cultural Stadium, Chicago can look to other cities for inspiration: the covered passages of Paris lined with shops that evoke the city’s past, the IKEA stores in downtown San Francisco or Toronto. The ‘shopping as experience’ exemplified in areas like Tokyo’s Shibuya District. (Death of retail? The Tower Records logo hangs atop its eight-story store over the district’s Miyashita Park.) In London and Paris, the historic department stores are treated like immutable facts of the city’s life—no one in London is wondering when Harrods might shutter its doors.
“The city’s got to realize everything it’s got, and begin to use it.
“Six ideas for State Street” (Hieggelke, NewCity, 2/12/25)