(The Center Square) – Office vacancies are up, downtown foot traffic is down, and non-office retail and restaurants in Colorado due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to a report released by the Common Sense Institute called The Road to Recovery: Downtown Denver.
The study, authored by CSI Urban Development Fellow Kelly Brough looks at how Downtown Denver is economically recovering from the coronavirus pandemic — and the areas where it hasn’t fully recovered.
Office vacancies are higher than ever, downtown foot traffic has recovered slower in Denver than in other cities, and non-office retail and restaurants have decreased traffic as well.
“To the extent that it is possible to know which factors are most directly related to a sluggish downtown recovery, homelessness, and crime, particularly property crime, are as important as the remote work trends that have emptied offices,” a press release from Common Sense Institute said.
Downtown foot traffic in Denver is just 67% of what it was in 2019; it’s the 16th lowest among 55 cities examined, according to the University of Toronto School of Cities.
Downtown Denver’s office building vacancy rate is more than double what it was five years ago; the rate is 24%, up from 11% in 2019. Denver has the largest vacancy rate among Front Range cities, the release said.
Similarly, 13.4 million square feet of vacant office and retail space in downtown Denver, “the footage of eight Empower Field stadiums,” the release said.
Yet, downtown Denver renters paid $37.60 per square foot in 2023, the highest on record.
Even so, taxable sales revenue in Denver grew by 41% from 2019 to 2024; it was the lowest among 12 Front Range counties, the release said. However, if Denver recovered at the average rate of the other counties, it would have had $646 million more in taxable sales in the first half of 2024.
“If Denver’s taxable sales had recovered at the average rate of Front Range counties, they would have nearly doubled in the first half of 2024,” the release said.
To revitalize downtown Denver, city leaders should back policies like cutting regulations, improving public safety, encouraging in-office work, and building more housing, the report said.
Read the full report here.
