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
December 2024 (November 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
Nearly 2.3 million unique visitors came downtown in November 2024. This represents 90% of the visitors seen in November 2019, and was a 7% increase over the number of visitors seen in November 2023.
Average daily worker foot traffic (Monday–Friday)
In November, downtown averaged nearly 91,000 workers per weekday. This represents a 5% increase from November 2023, and is 56% of November 2019’s weekday average.
Monthly hotel rooms sold compared to 2019
There were nearly 302,000 downtown hotel rooms sold in November 2024. This figure represents 92% of the demand in November 2019, and a 2% increase compared to November 2023.
In November, the number of occupied apartment units downtown continued growing, rising to nearly 59,000 units. This represented a 4% increase compared to Q4 2023 and a 17% increase compared to Q4 2019.
Of Note in Downtown
The DSA/MID Clean Team collected more than 1.2 million gallons of trash from sidewalks, curblines and alleys from December 2023 through November 2024.
The Sound Transit Link Light Rail system has enjoyed three consecutive months of record ridership. The most recent data shows a record 3.08 million boardings in October 2024.
Coming Up in Downtown
A hilarious holiday tradition is on stage at ACT Theatre. Back for its 25th year, the brilliant and comedic Dina Martina Christmas Show runs through Dec. 24.
The Seattle Men’s Chorus fills Benaroya Hall with its Ho Ho Ho concerts on Saturday, Dec. 21. This year’s schedule includes two shows that day — a one-hour performance designed for children at 11 a.m. and a 2 p.m. show for the grown-ups.
Ring in the new year at New Year’s at Seattle Center on Tuesday, Dec. 31. The festivities begin with live music at 8 p.m. The main event at midnight will feature 500 drones flying in formation followed by fireworks launched at the Space Needle.
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.