Bellwether Residences is 1st office-to-residential conversation completed in Chicago's Loop

CHICAGO (WLS) -- A downtown office building in Chicago's financial district has been converted into apartments.

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City leaders say it brings new life into vacant space.

79 W. Monroe Street marks the first completed office-to-residential conversion under the mayor's LaSalle Street Reimagined initiative.

Bellwether Residences at the corner of Clark and Monroe was formally the historic Rector Building, originally built in 1905.

Mayor Brandon Johnson introduced the first of six vacant office properties in the Loop shuttered by the pandemic, now repurposed into rentable apartment units.

"COVID fundamentally changed downtowns across this country and around the world. The old model of central business district dominated by offices five days a week simply doesn't work the way it once did. To keep downtown Chicago vibrant we transformed it into a true mixed-use neighborhood a place where people work, but they also live eat shop and raise families," 34th Ward Ald. Bill Conway said.

Valued at more than $900 million dollars, the projects will repurpose more than two million square feet of space throughout downtown without using taxpayer dollars to revitalize this former business district.

Johnson said the building offers 117 residential units and more than a third of the units are affordable.

"The $64.2 million conversion was supported with $28 million in city TIF assistance as part of my administration's commitment to investing in housing and creating more affordable city for everyone," Johnson said.

In total, this initiative is expected to create more than 1,700 homes near the LaSalle Street corridor