Chicago's Business District To Go Condo?

Crain's Chicago Business reports:

Aon Center's owner is weighing a residential conversion of the top floors of the trophy tower overlooking Grant Park, in what is becoming a familiar formula for hard-pressed office landlords: If you can't lease it, turn it into ritzy condos.

A fixture on the Chicago skyline since 1973, the former Standard Oil Building — later known as the Amoco Building — would be the most prominent example on a growing list of towers considering converting some of their vacant space to other uses. While the John Hancock Center is reviewing hotel proposals, IBM Plaza and 55 E. Monroe St. are studying residential plans; 900 N. Michigan Ave. is already marketing 48 condos made out of vacant offices.

The trend reflects economic forces at work throughout the downtown real estate market, but especially near the lakefront.

"With office demand waning and moving westward, landlords are clearly reassessing and asking themselves if residential or hotel or even student housing is more profitable," says Louis D'Angelo, president of Metropolitan Properties of Chicago LLC. The development firm is converting into condos the offices at 310 S. Michigan Ave., the blue-globe-topped former headquarters of Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc.

With downtown Chicago losing its' job base, this is certainly a huge trend.Old downtowns used to be a center for commerce.With the rise of the internet, it appears old downtown is in for a big decline.For a city like Chicago,a declining job base means declining population.This story could play out in Boston,Philadephia,and New York.