Why the South Loop

Chicago’s South Loop is one of the country’s fastest growing neighborhoods. Its proximity to downtown and Chicago landmarks, like Grant Park, The Museum Campus and Lake Michigan, make this burgeoning area a beautiful and exciting place to live. Yet just ten years ago, a different story was being told.

South Loop Roots

Until the 1990s, the South Loop was not much of a place to call home. Block after block, this industrial area was little more than asphalt parking lots and rundown warehouses – an apparent graveyard of what was once the city’s major rail center and home to some of the biggest companies in the country, including International Harvester, Crane Plumbing, R. R. Donnelley publishing, and Studebaker automobiles. But by the mid-20^th century, rail travel had declined and industry drifted away to newer locations, leaving behind many gorgeous but vacant buildings and miles of railroad tracks.

Post WWII Era

For decades, since the area’s downfall in the post World War II era, numerous attempts had been made to tap into the real estate potential of the roughly 74 square block region just south of the city’s center. The South Loop was a blank canvas for which architects and developers alike could project their wildest schemes. Projects including a mammoth multi-sport stadium, monorail trains and glass-tube walkways five flights above the street, interconnected 72-story towers, and even an attempt to organize a world’s fair on the south lakefront, were proposed, but none were able to pull through and bring about the neighborhood’s modernization.

South Loop Rising

The key to revitalizing the South Loop seemed to be a slower, piece-by-piece process, rather than a full-scale overnight neighborhood revamp.  And the first piece to the puzzle fell into place in the mid-1980s with the success of developments Dearborn Park I and II.  Success bred success and soon other developers were eager to snatch up plots of land in the area and start building. Before long the South Loop had become a prime residential spot, and Mayor Daley himself decided to relocate his family to this up-and-coming corner of the city.

A Chicago Hot Spot

Now, one of the hottest neighborhoods in Chicago, the South Loop boasts countless sleek hi-rises, transformed loft spaces and modern townhomes. Schools, parks, restaurants and retail flourish here, while its amenities, such as Museum Campus and Grant Park, offer unsurpassed culture - making the South Loop the ideal place for urbanites to live.