Worker foot traffic still rising in downtown Seattle, but office vacancies make for ‘fragile' city core

Geek Wire

2 days ago

(GeekWire Photo / Kurt Schlosser)
Worker foot traffic in downtown Seattle continues to show signs of improving, more than five years after the start of the pandemic, according to the latest figures released this week by the Downtown Seattle Association. But it's a 'fragile' dynamic according to one official, with rising office vacancy rates continuing to generate concern.
The DSA's Downtown Revitalization Dashboard for August shows that worker foot traffic in July was 66% of July 2019's daily average — the highest rate of monthly worker foot traffic since February 2020.
According to DSA, the figure represents more than 154,000 daily worker visits in July — a 7% increase from July 2024. In January of this year, weekday worker foot traffic was 57% of January 2019.
The bump coincides with Amazon's 2025 return to five days per week in office for the roughly 50,000 corporate and tech workers at its Seattle headquarters.
'While a number of metrics are moving in the right direction, downtown is still fragile, and we face challenges with high office and retail vacancy,' DSA President and CEO Jon Scholes told GeekWire. 'Those circumstances ultimately will negatively affect the city's tax base if not urgently addressed.'
Seattle's office vacancy rate is still among the highest in the country, trailing only Austin and San Francisco, according to recent figures from CommercialCafe.
In its Q2 report, commercial real estate company Colliers said Seattle's vacancy rate rose to 32.4%, up from 28.7% a year ago. The firm expects vacancy to rise further in the coming quarters but also said 'improving RTO adherence and economic clarity could support stronger leasing activity in late 2025 and into 2026.'
Colliers noted new leases in downtown Seattle for tech companies including Stackline (Madison Centre), Carta (Columbia Center), and Supio (Century Square).
Digital remittance company Remitly moved more than 500 workers into new headquarters space in the Rainier Square skyscraper in May. The company occupies three floors and there are plans to take over another next year, with room for 220 more workstations.
Elsewhere, 'AI House,' a first-in-the-nation hub designed to bring entrepreneurs, investors, students and community leaders together to enhance collaboration on artificial intelligence, got up and running this spring along the waterfront at Pier 70.
Others are departing. Real estate firm JLL noted the vacancy created by global health nonprofit PATH, which moved from a 111,000-square-foot space downtown to new headquarters in the Fremont neighborhood.
DSA has been in lockstep with Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell about boosting downtown activity. Seattle is two years into Harrell's Downtown Activation Plan to revitalize the city core post-pandemic, but the mayor is facing a tough re-election battle against challenger Katie Wilson.
Downtown revitalization is a key part of Wilson's platform. According to her website, the mayoral candidate said she supports a potential vacancy tax for commercial property owners and office-to-housing conversions.
Along with the worker numbers, DSA also reported on 'unique visitors' to the city's core, with 3.2 million such visitors being counted in July, representing 97% of the amount seen in July 2019.
DSA credited a number of factors and events, including a busy July 26, when more than 671,000 people were counted on the night of a Morgan Wallen concert at Lumen Field and the Seafair Torchlight Parade. Only July 2023 — when Taylor Swift was in town and the Major League Baseball All-Star week was happening — reached that level since March 2020.
According to DSA, downtown foot traffic data is provided by Placer.ai and is based on cell phone location data. Each person is counted once per day.