(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.