Heightened Security, Cheaper Rents Kick-Start Long-Awaited Recovery For Chicago's Magnificent Mile

For nearly a century, the Magnificent Mile has been Chicago's premier shopping corridor, defined by luxury tenants and the city's highest retail rents.

But the strip fell on hard times in the wake of the pandemic. By 2023, a third of its retail was vacant amid falling foot traffic and rising concerns over security.

Now the Mag Mile is showing signs of recovery as a wave of new leases and reset rents draws retailers back. The shift is helping stabilize one of the country’s most closely watched shopping districts, representing a rebranding of its identity.

“The most significant barrier over the past several years was uncertainty,” said Liz Gilbert, the Magnificent Mile Association's vice president of sales and marketing. “That level of uncertainty made it difficult for both landlords and tenants to make long-term decisions.”

After the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 destroyed 17,000 buildings, the city needed to recover. Part of those plans included the reimagining of Pine Street, later renamed Michigan Avenue. It wasn't until 1920 when a bridge opened, making the thoroughfare more accessible, that the Magnificent Mile was born.

Today, the avenue represents the “luxury spine” of Chicago, rivaling New York's Fifth Avenue and Beverly Hills' Rodeo Drive. Its status means the Mag Mile is looked upon as a barometer of America's retail health.

When the pandemic spread across the U.S., it hit the Mag Mile and other luxury areas hard. Vacancy rates increased as more businesses closed. In the years since, the name of the game has been recovery.

Its coastal counterpart districts in New York and Los Angeles have already seen a significant bounce back from the pandemic. The availability rate across major Manhattan shopping corridors, which includes Fifth Avenue and Times Square, dropped to 13.7% in the fourth quarter, the lowest rate since 2017. By the end of 2024, the average annual retail rent on Los Angeles' storied Rodeo Drive climbed 19% year-over-year to $1,100 per SF, second only to Fifth Avenue.

The Mag Mile, on the other hand, is only now starting to climb out of the hole it has found itself in since the onset of the pandemic.

The Decline

Pandemic-related challenges forced retailers to leave in droves. Vacancy climbed from 15% in 2019 to more than 33% in 2023, more than nine times 2016's low point of 3.6%, according to a Kirsch Agency report.

In the pandemic years, with people social distancing, there were fewer eyes on the Magnificent Mile. Compounding that, the post-pandemic increase in vacancy rates created ample opportunity for crime to rise. 

To address this, the Magnificent Mile Association budgeted $320K for private security coverage in 2025 and renewed its contract with its existing vendor for 2026, Gilbert told Bisnow. She said the private security spending reflects a reduction from previous years. 

“From an operational standpoint, conditions have improved, and there is strong coordination between the Chicago Police Department, Cook County Sheriff’s Office, and district stakeholders,” Gilbert told Bisnow in a statement. 

In Chicago's 18th Police District, which includes the Mag Mile and several other city neighborhoods, robberies and burglaries through April 19 are down 35% and 26%, respectively, compared to the same period in 2023. Theft is down 3%, according to a Chicago Police Department report. 

The CPD didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment. 

“None of my clients seem to be overly concerned with crime as a deterrent to dealmaking right now,” Kirsch Agency Managing Broker Greg Kirsch said. 

In the second quarter of 2025, leasing volume began to pick up, according to Kirsch Agency. Vacancy dipped to 28.5% by the end of 2025, and the agency projects the year-end vacancy rate to settle around 23.5%. 

State Of The Strip

In the first 3.5 months of 2026, tenants have signed more than 80K SF of leases on the Magnificent Mile. The majority of the pickup was driven by the National Confectionery Sales Association’s 60K SF lease for the Candy Hall of Fame at 830 N. Michigan Ave. in April — the largest lease signed on the strip in more than a decade.

Kirsch, who represented NCSA in the deal, has another 15K SF deal near completion. This positions his agency close to hitting its 100K SF projection for 2026 activity just four months into the year. 

Newmark Senior Managing Director Keely Polczynski, who represented both parties in the $41M sale of the retail space at the base of 500 N. Michigan Ave. earlier this month, said resetting market values creates a window for capital to reenter the corridor at a basis that was great for retailers.  

“The leasing momentum, the foot traffic, the activity in the last 18 months has been super robust,” Polczynski said. “It's been more encouraging, certainly, since anything I've seen from pandemic times and probably even before that.”

The Mag Mile saw roughly 15.7 million visits in 2025, up from 15.1 million in 2024, according to Placer.ai data provided to Bisnow by the Magnificent Mile Association.

Farpoint Development and Saxony Capital offer one of the most prominent examples of new Mag Mile owners with a reset basis. The joint venture scooped up the six-story building at 830 N. Michigan Ave. for $40M in 2023, less than a quarter of the price it sold for a decade earlier. 

Farpoint principal and co-founder Regina Stilp said buying the building at a discount allows the JV to be more competitive on rental rates. The iconic strip still has a “built-in audience” of tenants who want to be there.

The Mag Mile Rebrand

When Stone Real Estate principal John Vance walked clients down the Mag Mile two years ago, he had to do a lot more telling than showing. He would point to leasing signs and have to explain that certain spaces were actually off the market.

Now, the completed stores tell their own stories. 

“There is a palpable visual feel of the avenue when you walk down now, and that's where it's not recovering — it's recovered,” Vance said.

Some Mag Mile stalwarts are fading away: Saks Fifth Avenue, which opened on Michigan Avenue in 1929, is slated to shutter its seven-story store on the strip in May. The iconic Water Tower Place, the city’s first indoor mall, has more space than can be actively used for retail, 2nd Ward Alderman Brian Hopkins told Block Club Chicago last year.

Mango and the Harry Potter Shop join a growing contingent of tenants on the Magnificent Mile that represent a reinvention of the avenue’s luxury origins into a more accessible and experiential place. Others include the Candy Hall of Fame, Alo Yoga, a three-story Aritzia, and Uniqlo, which notably left its storefront at 830 N. Michigan before returning to a new, smaller space this year. 

“Now you have these puzzle pieces going in that are like, ‘Well, what a great addition,’” Vance said. 

Leica Camera, a high-end photography brand, announced a 5K SF deal across two floors at 800 N. Michigan Ave. last week, the company’s first retail location in the Midwest. 

The Mag Mile’s reputation for drawing customers who value product quality and design, as well as strong adjacency to other top brands, sealed the deal. 

“The Magnificent Mile brings together everything that matters for the Leica brand,” Mike Giannattasio, president of Leica Camera North America, said in a statement. “It is one of the most recognized retail corridors in the U.S., with a strong mix of luxury, culture, and global tourism. That aligns naturally with how we position Leica.”

Property owners are making upgrades to their buildings — improving facades, lighting, signage and entrances — to strengthen street presence, Gilbert said. They are also repositioning spaces to accommodate new types of tenants, reconfiguring footprints and investing in build-outs that support more experiential uses. 

“Leasing strategies have become more intentional,” Gilbert said in a statement. “Landlords are focused on curating a mix of tenants that drive consistent traffic and complement one another, rather than relying solely on traditional retail anchors.” 

Overall, the pace of leasing is healthy, and there have been minimal closures, with the exception of Saks, Kirsch said. He projects full recovery on the strip by 2030, which he defines as a mid-to-low-teens vacancy rate.

“Landlords are willing to accept the carnage, and now the leases are getting signed,” Kirsch said. “The market's filling up. Now there's more velocity, because success begets success.”