3 ms·
Good point. I've grown rather used to seeing mostly-vacant floors in office buildings in the Loop. I wonder if perhaps we're seeing the results of a shift to
by bunderbunder 11y ago
Good point. I've grown rather used to seeing mostly-vacant floors in office buildings in the Loop.
I wonder if perhaps we're seeing the results of a shift to the service economy in addition to the shift back to the cities. If we need fewer people to manually perform clerical work in offices, and more people to run the restaurants that we increasingly eat at, then that's going to create a definite shift in demand for different kinds of commercial space.
- fixxer 11y ago> different kinds of commercial space. And different uses for existing space. I'm not a big believer in any economic theory, but I see supply-side drivers abound. Case in point, there are so many vacant ex-Dominick's you can rent/buy for a song.
- toomuchtodo 11y agoWhile those ex-Dominicks buildings are for lease ("rent/buy for a song"), I have yet to see anyone acquire them at their old Bartlett, Schaumburg, or Algonquin locations.
- bunderbunder 11y agoHead up to Milwaukee and you'll see plenty of old Kohl's supermarkets that have all been sitting vacant ever since the chain shut down over a decade ago.
- will_work4tears 11y agoOh wow, did all of your Milwaukee's Kohl's shut down? We have them here (Puget Sound area) still, and when we left Missouri in 2008 they were still there doing fine.
- hnal943 11y agoKohl's Grocery Stores (defunct) is different than the department store chain, which incidentally is headquartered in the Milwaukee suburbs.
- toomuchtodo 11y agoAnd the only reason Kohl's the department store chain still has its HQ in Wisconsin is due to extremely generous tax breaks from Scott Walker.
- bunderbunder 11y agoNot entirely; they were both run by the same parent company.
- burger_moon 11y agoThe grocery stores were vacant for a few years but I can't think of any since I left Milwaukee last year that were still dormant. Office Max, Joanne Fabrics, those types of retail took over most of them that weren't leveled.