Should we even try downtown retail?

[DetroitPlanner]

A lot of people do take the train. But there's a reason traffic is so bad... because suburbanites do drive to work. It's not B.S. You can't possibly tell me that all of the traffic on the freeways in Chicago are traveling to Lincoln Park and similar places.

Your logic reminds me of a Yogi Berra quote. "Nobody goes there anymore, its too crowded".

Think about it in terms of time and remember that Chicago is a major bottleneck for interstate commerce [[a lot like I-94 is) but on a much larger scale. That is why the freeways there are exponentially larger and slower than ours. Who is logically going to be able to take advantage of the parking? Most of those commuting from the suburbs or those commuting from closer? Lincoln Park is much more well moneyed than those from Palatine or Blue Island. They [[Lincoln Parkers) can better afford the rent to park the car as they are the higher income folks. You can't assume that everything is the same as it is here where all of the rich folks live far from the City. We are definitely an anomaly.

Lets get back to the purpose of the thread. You need to cater your retail to those who work and live downtown. The DDA should be performing a market study and identifying what is underserved. Ultimately this discussion is conjecture without it.