Samir Mayekar

Deputy Mayor, Economic and Neighborhood Development

City of Chicago

COVID didn’t just shut down Chicago’s streets in May of 2020. It shut down plans and initiatives to revitalize entire neighborhoods.

Now, three years later, some those streets are still empty. The way we work has undergone a once-in-a-lifetime transformation, with the rise of hybrid and remote work shifting the center of gravity away from the Central Business District to the surrounding neighborhoods.

And yet, in the war for talent, companies have been investing in amenity rich office space in newer buildings, leaving large swaths of office space vacant in places like the LaSalle Street corridor, triggering defaults and foreclosures for building owners.

Against this backdrop of feast or famine, Deputy Mayor Samir Mayekar is determined to help reverse the decline of older office districts , inject investment into underserved areas, and bring foot traffic back to city streets, all the convincing companies that Chicago is the place to be.

On this episode, Samir shares his vision and his plan to make it happen.