Seattle Magazine: Is Downtown Seattle Again Becoming The Place To Be?

This piece was originally published by Seattle Magazine on Dec. 17, 2024.

By: Rob Smith

More workers and visitors are increasingly going to downtown Seattle. While the growth is incremental, the numbers are cause for optimism.

The Downtown Seattle Association (DSA) reports that nearly 2.3 million unique visitors came downtown in November. That’s 90% of the visitors prior to the same month five years ago (shortly before the pandemic). It’s 7% higher than a year ago. DSA notes that November was the ninth straight month with more than 88,000 workers.

More workers are coming into the office as well. The average of 91,000 weekday workers is up 5% from last year, though it’s just 56% of November 2019. January’s numbers should be significantly higher, as Amazon’s full-time return to office policy kicks in.

Hotel occupancy is also slightly on the rise, as is the number of occupied apartment units downtown. More than 100,000 people now live in the city’s core.

Some other interesting facts:

• Almost 6,000 holiday revelers attended the Holiday Tree Lighting Celebration the day after Thanksgiving to celebrate the formal kickoff of the holidays in Seattle.
• Sound Transit Light Link Rail reports three consecutive months of record ridership, with 3.08 million boardings in October.
• The DSA-Metropolitan Improvement District team collected more than 1.2 million gallons of trash from sidewalks the past year. City boosters say picking up trash and removing graffiti are among the most direct ways to spur downtown visits.