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Chicago

Crime gives Fulton Market firms pause

Chicago had 836 murders in 2021, a record for the city since 1994

(iStock, Illustration by Kevin Cifuentes for The Real Deal)
(iStock, Illustration by Kevin Cifuentes for The Real Deal)

Chicago’s hopes of turning Fulton Market into a tech hub may be threatened by rising crime.

One out-of-town tech company scrapped plans to lease an office in the area after a September shooting on Milwaukee Street that wounded five people, one of the many incidents that has shaken the confidence of executives, Crain’s reported. “Their biggest concern was the violence, and then it played out right in front of them,” a broker told the publication, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Potential hires ask, “‘I don’t have to live in Chicago, do I?’ It wasn’t a question before. It is now,” said Craig Rupp, CEO of Sabanto, an agricultural-technology startup with 10 employees whose office is a few blocks from the site of the shooting.

Chicago had 836 murders in 2021, the most since 1994. Shootings rose 9 percent, topping 3,500 for the second time in five years. Carjackings jumped 30 percent to 1,836, three times the total in 2019, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot acknowledges the rise in crime and her office is working with companies “to ensure Chicago is a safe place to work and live for everyone.”

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“Public safety is Mayor Lightfoot’s number one priority and World Business Chicago are in constant contact with both current and potential future employers about what steps the city is taking to address the national trend in violent crime,” said a spokeswoman for Mayor Lightfoot.

The city’s assurances aren’t enough for some companies. Steven Galanis, CEO of Cameo, an e-commerce company, recently brought about 70 workers back to an office in the Merchandise Mart, only to see a mugging and shooting in the first few weeks.

“These things didn’t happen before,” Galanis said on twitter. “Now they’re happening.”

Galanis, who moved to Miami during the pandemic, said more than a dozen employees in Chicago moved out of town.

“It may have started with CEOs and investors leaving, but now it’s rank-and-file employees,” he said. “It’s gotten worse, especially in the last six months,” he said.

[Crain’s] – Connie Kim

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CrimeFulton MarketLori Lightfoot