What It Took to Put Apartments on LaSalle Street, and What That Price Says About the Loop

On September 9, 2026, Mayor Brandon Johnson rang a bell inside the Rector Building at 79 W. Monroe St. and opened Bellwether Residences, the first apartments finished under Chicago's LaSalle Street Reimagined program. By that afternoon 25 of its 117 units had residents, and the building was processing 41 applications for its 41 affordable units, according to Block Club Chicago's opening-day report.

The city put $28 million of tax-increment financing into that $64 million conversion. That works out to roughly $239,000 of public money per apartment, and 44 cents of every construction dollar. Near the river, Wacker Place converted the 1928 Millinery Mart at 65 E. Wacker Place into 252 apartments with no city funding. The $106 million project leaned on $17 million in historic tax credits, about 16 cents on the dollar.

That gap is the most useful downtown market signal of 2026. A subsidy fills the space between what a building costs to convert and what renters will pay to live on that block. The bigger the check, the less the private market currently values the location for housing. So far, the Loop is becoming residential from its edges inward, and the LaSalle corridor itself is on a calendar that runs into 2028.

The subsidy works as an appraisal

Each of the six LaSalle Reimagined projects has a public price attached. Dividing the city's commitment by the unit count gives a rough per-apartment measure of how far each building's economics fell short on its own.

The LaSalle projects mostly cluster near 40 percent public money, and the 30 percent affordability requirement built into the program explains part of that. Wacker Place carries its own affordable set-aside of 51 units under Chicago's Affordable Requirements Ordinance and still needed far less help per apartment. It sits in the Michigan-Wacker Historic District, and its patio looks out on the Chicago River and Marina City. Location accounts for most of the remaining difference.

The two counts on 208 S. LaSalle conflict. On April 16, 2025, the city's approval release described 168 apartments with 51 affordable, while Block Club's report the same day described 226 units with 68 affordable. Until a later filing settles the scope, that building's per-unit figure stays open.

What the market rents say about the same blocks

Asking rents give the same reading from the tenant's side. Bellwether's market-rate units start at $1,664 for a 430 to 500 square foot studio, $2,384 for a one-bedroom of 550 to 800 square feet, and $4,887 for a 1,100 square foot two-bedroom. That comes to about $3.30 to $3.90 per square foot for a studio and about $4.40 for the two-bedroom. Riverside Investment & Development has described expected rents at 135 S. LaSalle in the mid-to-upper $3 per square foot range. Wacker Place listed rents starting at $2,195 when it began preleasing in June 2026.

Those rents cover a newly finished apartment inside a historic shell. Bellwether has a tenant lounge, fitness center, outdoor terrace, bike storage and a dog run. The units are mostly studios and one-bedrooms, with only seven two-bedrooms. Anyone pricing a downtown condo against these buildings is comparing against small-format rental stock aimed at a specific renter, and that comparison stays narrow until the larger projects deliver a wider mix.

The corridor's real calendar

The 1,765 apartments planned across the six projects arrive in stages, and only one stage is finished. Ald. Bill Conway said at the opening that the remaining five are slated to come online throughout 2028. The latest reporting on each one shows how uneven that path is.

1. 79 W. Monroe is open and leasing as of September 9, 2026.
2. 135 S. LaSalle received $98 million in TIF in late October 2025. Riverside's October 2025 account expected construction to start in Q1 2026 and first units in mid-to-late 2027. No source located confirms either milestone.
3. 30 N. LaSalle won TIF approval on January 21, 2026, and on May 20, 2026 the city approved landmark designation plus a Class L incentive for the building's remaining commercial space.
4. 111 W. Monroe still lacked secured residential financing and an overall timeline as of June 2026, per Chicago YIMBY. A July 15, 2026 city proposal added a $50 million TIF loan for a 308-key hotel alongside the 345-unit residential plan.
5. 105 W. Adams got $67.5 million in TIF in September 2025. On July 2, 2026, Crain's Chicago Business reported that a lawsuit threatening the conversion would stay active after a judge declined to dismiss it.
6. 208 S. LaSalle won approval for up to $26 million on April 16, 2025, and its final unit count is unresolved.

Projects that needed less public money moved faster. The private conversions near the river and Michigan Avenue were running ahead of the subsidized LaSalle pipeline. The Chicago Sun-Times counted 25 downtown conversions underway in June 2026, more than in the previous 20 years combined according to the city's planning department. The city's September 9 release described nearly two dozen private conversions totaling about $1.8 billion and roughly 3,900 units.

Why thin supply keeps the math working

Developers take on conversions this expensive because downtown has had very little new apartment supply. Integra Realty Resources' 2026 report, built on third-quarter 2025 data, forecast about 550 downtown deliveries in 2026 and about 2,000 in 2027. Of the 2,216 units then under construction, 270 were conversion units. Those figures are a year old and should be read as a forecast. The more current signal is a September 10, 2026 Crain's report that downtown rent growth in the second quarter of 2026 eased to its slowest pace since late 2024, while new deliveries were still expected to fall short of demand.

Slowing rent growth combined with a supply shortfall makes the subsidy question more pointed. The edge-of-Loop buildings can carry their own costs at current rents. The LaSalle core needs rents to keep climbing, or the city to keep writing checks, until the street around it fills in.

What would move the LaSalle number

Two things could change the core's economics, and both are visible on the street now.

The first is Google's renovation of the James R. Thompson Center. Block Club described it in September 2026 as under construction with a slated 2027 completion. The Real Deal reported in August 2026 that Google was set to occupy part of the building in 2027. On September 30, 2026, CoStar reported that Morningstar had leased space in the redevelopment and plans to move its headquarters there in late 2028. That puts a second anchor tenant on roughly the same timeline as the remaining LaSalle apartments.

The second is ground-floor life. CoStar reported in June 2026 that Old Town Pour House planned to take over the former City Social space at 120 N. LaSalle. The operator credited the Thompson Center plans with making the location work, and the report noted that Central Loop restaurant leasing had been nearly absent since 2020. The Chicago Loop Alliance's July 2026 roundup of new Loop businesses lists several on or near the corridor:

• Amorino Gelato at 209 S. LaSalle
• The Halal Guys at 100 N. LaSalle
• Chicago Cut Steakhouse and NAIA at 300 N. LaSalle
• Fatback at 222 N. LaSalle
• Cafe Pisolino at 71 W. Monroe, next door to Bellwether
• Mexican Radio at 100 W. Monroe
• Henrietta at 151 W. Adams

At 135 S. LaSalle, Riverside's plans call for a small-format grocer, a fitness center and medical offices in about 92,000 square feet of lower-level space. No tenant has been named.

"The old model of a central business district dominated by offices five days a week simply doesn't work the way it wants to," Conway said at the Bellwether opening.

Each restaurant lease and each office tenant committed to the Thompson Center raises what a renter will pay to live a block away. That shrinks the gap the next subsidy has to fill. Successive TIF requests on the corridor should get smaller as that happens, and the size of those requests is the clearest public record of whether LaSalle is catching up to the river edge.

Quick answers

Are the LaSalle Reimagined buildings condos? No. Bellwether is a rental building that opened for leasing in September 2026. The other approved projects are also planned as apartments.

When do the other five buildings open? Officials have said throughout 2028. Construction starts for 135 S. LaSalle, 30 N. LaSalle and 208 S. LaSalle were not confirmed in reporting available as of October 2026, and 105 W. Adams faces active litigation.

Has any of this changed downtown condo values? No published source has measured an effect on nearby condo prices. The only verified effects so far are leasing activity, a few restaurant openings, and corporate commitments to the Thompson Center.

If you own a condo in the Loop, Streeterville or River North, your valuation depends on more than the median. It also depends on which side of this subsidy gap your block sits on and how quickly the 2028 pipeline changes that. NiKo Collaborative prepares downtown valuations against current conversion rents, the private pipeline and recent sold comps. Request a Home Valuation, and we'll show you where your building fits.

This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.