Economic Revitalization
Tracking downtown revitalization
Since the onset of COVID-19, DSA has been tracking the impact on our local economy. As downtown bounces back, we continue to follow dozens of metrics to trace the path to full economic recovery. A few of these metrics are below.
Downtown Revitalization Dashboard
November 2025 (October data)
Downtown Seattle was the first American urban center to experience the impacts of COVID-19, enduring a sudden economic downturn. As downtown continues to evolve, DSA will publish a monthly Revitalization Dashboard examining key metrics. The data sets provide a comparison point to the same time period in 2019. Additionally, the dashboard will feature notable stories that provide context regarding downtown’s renewal and reemergence.
Please credit the Downtown Seattle Association Revitalization Dashboard for use of charts, data and images on this page.
Unique monthly visitors compared to 2019
2.6 million unique visitors came downtown in October 2025. This represents 96% of the visitors seen in October 2019 and a 5% decline from October 2024.
Average weekday worker foot traffic
In October, downtown’s worker foot traffic was 62% of October 2019’s daily average. This figure represents nearly 147,000 daily worker visits.
Monthly hotel rooms sold compared to 2019
There were nearly 360,000 downtown hotel rooms sold in October 2025. This figure represents 95% of the demand in October 2019, and a 5% decrease in demand compared to September 2024.
Quarterly
In October, the number of occupied apartment units downtown continued growing, rising to nearly 60,700. This represents a 3% increase compared to Q4 2024 and a 20% increase compared to Q4 2019.
Of Note in Downtown
With Barnes & Noble’s recent announcement of returning to downtown Seattle and recent openings, there’s momentum building at the street level. There have been 51 ground-floor openings in the downtown core so far in 2025.
Through October, the DSA/MID Clean Team has collected 1,058,046 gallons of trash from downtown sidewalks, curblines and alleys across 300 square blocks. That’s roughly enough volume to fill two Olympic-sized swimming pools.
In October, there were 3.7 million ORCA card taps from employer-provided ORCA cards, up 8% compared to October 2024. These are cards provided through the ORCA Business Passport program.
Coming Up in Downtown
Usher in the holidays with the DSA Tree Lighting Celebration on Friday, Nov. 28, the annual event that truly marks the start of the season in downtown. The time honored tradition will feature special guests this year with Mariners play-by-play announcer Rick Rizzs and fan favorite Humpy.
Buddy the Elf is back! Based on the Will Ferrell comedy classic, Elf-The Musical takes the stage at The Fifth Avenue Theatre Nov. 28–Dec. 28. This show premiered on Broadway in 2010 and is now firmly entrenched as a critically acclaimed holiday musical.
Pick out the perfect tree in downtown. New this year, DSA is bringing a tree lot to the iconic intersection of First Avenue and Pike Street. Pines on Pike Christmas Tree Lot will be the perfect spot to pick up a tree, wreath or garland from Nov. 28–Dec. 14.
Notes on Sources
Downtown foot traffic data are provided by Placer.ai and are based on cell phone location data. Each person is counted once per day. International visitors are not included. Subsets of this data in the charts are as follows:
- Office worker presence is estimated based on visits by workers who were present between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. on weekdays in downtown Seattle.*
- Hotel data are based on monthly reports from STR, provided by Visit Seattle.
- Apartment occupancy data are from CoStar. This is reported quarterly but the current quarter data are updated in real-time as new information is added to the database.
- Domestic visitors counts those who do not live or work downtown.
- Total foot traffic includes all visits to downtown by domestic visitors, residents and workers.
- Pike Place Market visitors includes domestic visitors who do not live or work at the Pike Place Market.
*Note that workers who have not visited their work site in the past 90 days are classified as “visitors” until they are regularly visiting their work site at least three times in a one-week period.