A good friend of mine grew up near Broadway & Wall St in Lower Manhattan when the area was transforming into a mixed-use neighborhood after 9/11. His building was a part of a wave of old bank offices being converted to residential when office vacancies rose to 15.2% and residential vacancies were 45%. He said the area was surprisingly affordable when they first moved, but over the next decade became increasingly expensive as more high-income residents and workers started moving into the area. The opening of the new WTC complex and the flood of tourists and corporate workers really seemed to be what brought in a flurry of ritzy goods in the area. Now the area has several upscale restaurants, high-end jewelry and fashion stores, luxury hotels such as Nobu, and plenty of other expensive ass stuff.
LaSalle St at the rest of the Loop will likely follow in the same path as Manhattan's Financial District's evolution. The Thompson Center will bring in thousands of Google workers at a time when thousands of other workers will occupy millions of square feet of office space that has opened along Wacker Dr and the river. A sizeable chunk of them will want to live nearby, which will likely trigger a wave of residential conversions around the area. If several of the recent ideas to transform Lasalle St are implemented, I can imagine many more residents and tourists wanting to visit the area. All of these will really act as a feedback loop (no pun intended), and turn the area into a mixed-use district. If folks want a more detailed description of Lower Manhattan's transformation and see what The Loop may look like, below is a report by the NYC Department of City Planning
Report:
https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/planning...e_post_911.pdf
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