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
September 2024 (August 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.
Total monthly visitors since 2019
More than 3 million unique visitors came downtown in August 2024. This represents 96% of the visitors seen in August 2019, and is a nearly 6% increase in visitors compared to August 2023.
Average daily worker foot traffic (Monday–Friday)
In August, downtown averaged nearly 90,000 workers per weekday — the 3rd-highest figure since March 2020. This represents a 6% increase from August 2023 and 57% of the daily worker foot traffic seen in August 2019.
Monthly hotel rooms sold compared to 2019
Nearly 403,000 downtown hotel rooms were sold in August 2024 — the 2nd-highest monthly total since March 2020. This figure represents 100% of the demand in August 2019 and an 8% increase over August 2023 demand.
In August, the number of occupied apartment units downtown was nearly 59,000. This represented a 4% increase in occupied units compared to Q3 2023 and a 17% increase compared to Q3 2019.
Of Note in Downtown
The DSA/MID 2024 Downtown Summer Sounds concert series, which ran from July 5 to Sept. 10, drew tens of thousands of music fans. In fact, 2024 saw 5,000 more attendees than last year’s series and 10,000 more than in 2022.
In August, the DSA/MID Community Safety & Hospitality Team provided transit information and/or directions to 6,999 visitors, residents and workers. That’s a 43% increase from August 2023.
The Hope Corps Downtown Seattle Mural Project’s three dozen installations are nearly complete. From Belltown to SODO, and points in between, you’ll find 24 beautiful new murals in downtown. DSA worked with the city of Seattle’s Office of Arts & Culture and other partners to coordinate this project.
Coming Up in Downtown
Take your lunch break out of the office on Thursday, Sept. 19 at the final DSA/MID Food Truck Fest of 2024. Five food trucks and live music at Westlake Park is a lot more fun than the cubicle or breakroom.
Seattle Center’s cultural series Festál continues Sept. 28–29 with the Italian Festival. Two days celebrating Italian food, music, wine and culture will take place in the Armory building and Fisher Pavilion. Admission is free.
One of the most anticipated openings for a downtown public space is just around the corner. The Overlook Walk, a stunning centerpiece for the central waterfront’s redevelopment, is scheduled to open in early October.
COVID-19 Downtown Recovery Weekly Snapshot
These charts show weekly statistics from March 2020 through the most recent week available. To indicate the level of recovery, data is displayed as a percent of the same metric for the comparable week of 2019.
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 the downtown neighborhoods with the heaviest concentration of office space.*
- Total visitors includes those who do not live or work downtown. It does not include international visitors.
- 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.