After sitting empty for nearly a generation, the glassy retail base at Trump Tower Chicago is finally getting a tenant. Prasino, a farm-to-table restaurant based in La Grange, has signed on for space in the tower’s riverwalk-level podium, ending a 17-year retail drought at one of the city’s most visible addresses.
Crain's Chicago Business reports that Prasino will move into the ground-floor retail levels at 401 N. Wabash Ave., marking the first retail operator to occupy the tower’s podium since the skyscraper opened in 2009.
Leasing efforts kicked into higher gear last year, when the Trump Organization brought in brokerage firm Newmark to market roughly 70,000 square feet along the riverwalk and mezzanine, according to a Newmark press release. Newmark materials indicate brokers are willing to carve up floors, tweak ceiling heights, and help with restaurant buildouts to finally make the long, stubborn space pencil out for tenants.
Why It Took So Long
For years, brokers quietly acknowledged that the retail base at Trump Tower was a tough sell. Its curved layout, relatively low ceilings, and fuzzy street presence have long been a turnoff for traditional retailers, while the giant “TRUMP” letters plastered on the facade turned the riverfront location into political real estate as much as commercial real estate.
CoStar's 2025 coverage detailed how those design quirks and branding issues, combined with steep buildout costs, repeatedly scared off would-be occupants and left the podium oddly silent even as the rest of the tower filled with condos and hotel guests.
What This Could Mean For The Mag Mile
The timing is notable. Chicago’s marquee shopping stretch is still trying to shake off a brutal retail slump, but the numbers are starting to show a tentative rebound. Availability along the Magnificent Mile hovered near 28 percent at the end of 2025, The Real Deal reports, citing data from the Kirsch Agency, even as nearby Water Tower Place heads into a $170 million reboot.
If Prasino can turn a tricky, politically loaded riverfront footprint into a functioning restaurant, brokers say it could embolden other operators to take a fresh look at unconventional downtown spaces that have sat dark for years.
For now, Prasino appears to be keeping things low-key. The restaurant’s main website still lists only its La Grange location and menus, with no mention yet of a Trump Tower outpost, suggesting opening details have not been rolled out publicly. Newmark marketing materials indicate the landlord is prepared to sweeten lease terms and reshape the floor plan to fit tenants, a level of flexibility that may be crucial if more retailers are going to follow Prasino into the once ghostly podium.
