Downtown Seattle’s retail recovery — or lack thereof — by the numbers

Despite an influx of visitors and an uptick in sales this summer, downtown Seattle’s retail scene has not bounced back to its pre-pandemic norm. 

Retail occupancy in the downtown area was at nearly 100% from 2019 to 2020. As the pandemic set in, occupancy rates dropped by 10% and have basically been stuck there ever since. At the end of September, retail occupancy in the downtown area, at 90%, had not changed in more than a year. 

The number of new retail business licenses issued has fallen precipitously as well, dropping by more than half over the past three years. In the summer of 2019, the city issued over 540 new business licenses in the downtown area; this past summer, it issued 270 licenses.

In the last three months of 2020, the peak of the pandemic, the city issued 196 retail licenses for new businesses in the area. 

“Central downtown, as a destination shopping center, has declined to some degree,” said Rico Quirindongo, director of the Office of Planning and Community Development, in a recent report examining the status of the Downtown Retail Core that proposed changes meant to revitalize the area.

The department identified numerous empty street-level retail spaces. While the reasons for vacancies varied, authorities pointed to the expansion of online shopping during the pandemic as a contributing factor, as well as the permanent move away from traditional brick-and-mortar retail shopping. 

This summer, downtown hotel occupancy rates recovered almost to pre-pandemic levels as visitor foot traffic rebounded.

But total foot traffic is still nearly 20% lighter than before the pandemic and, despite visitors’ return, the average duration of a visit to the downtown area remains more than an hour shorter than in 2019. Worker foot traffic remains 40% lower than in 2019. 

Quirindongo noted that new development has been “more limited” downtown compared with nearby parts of the city. As a result, combined with the heavy volume of commuters passing through the streetscape on Third Avenue, “There are signs of deferred maintenance, outdated facades, and street furniture in disrepair,” he observed.

“These physical features negatively impact the pedestrian experience and, indirectly, the vitality of adjacent businesses,” he wrote, pushing for strategies to encourage new investment and refurbish the built environment.