24-May-20 – With pedestrians out of the way, State Street is getting cleaner.

Chicago Loop Alliance says its “Clean Team Ambassadors” have switched from sweeping, disposing trash, and removing graffiti to disinfecting and not much else. Bike racks, garbage cans, door handles, and other surfaces are being cleaned in the afternoons when pedestrian traffic, what little there is, is heaviest.

New backpack sprayers will help the team make the normally-busy Loop street even cleaner. A quick-drying disinfecting solution is being sprayed on everything likely to be touched along State Street from Wacker Drive south to Ida B. Wells Drive.

State Street is also being power washed every week. “Our responsibility to manage State Street is taking on a new meaning during COVID-19,” said Michael Edwards, President/CEO of Chicago Loop Alliance. Edwards says pedestrian activity on State Street in the past month is down by about 80 percent. (Left) A CLA Clean Team Ambassador cleans a door handle along State Street.

Even with traffic off, a study of business districts around the world has ranked the Loop as the tenth “most attractive business district in the world.”

The 2020 Attractiveness of Global Business Districts Report examined businesses, skills, economic power, and capital. It was commissioned by the Global Business Districts Innovation Club, of which Chicago Loop Alliance is a founding member.

“Something the report calls out is the need for cities to show resiliency amid COVID-19,” said Edwards (right). “If there’s one word I can use to describe Chicago, it’s ‘resilient.’ So while I know we will continue to face unprecedented challenges, there’s no city where I’d rather be facing them.”

The Loop is ranked second in the United States, behind New York’s Midtown.

Ranking of global business districts, according to the 2020 Attractiveness of Global Business Districts Report:

1. London, The City
2. New York, Midtown
3. Tokyo, Marunouchi
4. Paris, La Défense
5. London, Canary Wharf
6. New York, Financial District
7. Beijing, CBD
8. Seoul, Gangnam
9. Singapore, Downtown Core
10. Chicago, The Loop