Town of Seattle officers stated downtown is in higher form than it was once a 12 months in the past however there may be a lot more paintings to do — together with however now not restricted to bringing extra employees again to downtown workplaces.
Representatives from the Mayor’s Place of job, the Place of job of Financial Building, and the Place of job of the Waterfront and Civic Initiatives amassed at Town Corridor Wednesday for a media roundtable to recap the primary 12 months of Mayor Bruce Harrell’s Downtown Activation Plan to revitalize the town core post-pandemic.
“Downtown goes via a big metamorphosis, and it’s not at all simple and it’s now not at all times linear,” stated Markham McIntyre, director of Seattle’s Place of job of Financial Building.
The mayor’s plan is arranged round seven targets for downtown, together with making the realm more secure, a extra reasonably priced position to reside, a thriving retail sector, a spot the place other people wish to paintings, a spot for humanities, sports activities, tradition and leisure, a vacation spot for guests, and a more healthy and greener a part of the town.
Markham stated all the plan hinges at the thesis that “downtown runs on other people” and each and every objective is designed to draw extra other people — now not simply the workplace employees who left greater than 4 years in the past when Covid-19 struck.
“We will be able to’t simply depend on employees coming again downtown and think that’s going to resolve all of our downtown problems,” McIntyre stated. “Indisputably employees are part of the answer, that’s why we’ve made that one among our targets. However we will’t fixate on only one factor. We need to have an open mindset and feature more than one channels of motion.”
The ones channels of motion come with the whole lot from greater crime combating, new makes use of for empty storefronts, beautification and mural initiatives, and extra.
Remaining Would possibly, Amazon instituted a mandate for no less than 3 days every week in workplace for its greater than 50,000 company and tech workers in Seattle. Simply over a 12 months later, the South Lake Union group across the tech large’s headquarters structures is humming with renewed task.
Mayor Harrell has in the past praised Amazon’s coverage, and previous this month referred to as for the town’s govt department workers to building up in-office paintings from two days to 3. Supporting the Downtown Activation Plan was once now not the main reason why for the brand new mandate, even though it was once an element.
Deputy Mayor Tim Burgess stressed out right through Wednesday’s assembly that roughly 65% of the town’s 13,000 workers have already been reporting to their workstations on a daily basis since ahead of the pandemic started, throughout the pandemic and proceeding nowadays. He stated Harrell went to 3 days as a result of he believes — as did Amazon CEO Andy Jassy — that having groups in combination is a good factor.
“It’s now not near to ‘let’s convey our employees again so we will revitalize downtown,’ even though that’s unquestionably an element, but it surely’s ‘we will be able to paintings higher in combination, we will be able to be extra productive, we will be able to be extra ingenious if we’re in combination and attractive with each and every different,’” Burgess stated. “That’s what you’ve heard from Amazon. That’s what you’ve heard from different firms.”
King County and Sound Transit additionally introduced plans to regulate in-person insurance policies and Burgess referred to as Harrell’s skill to “convince them to come back together with us” an enormous sure for downtown and the ones employees.
The Downtown Seattle Affiliation reported in its newest Downtown Revitalization Dashboard that during July, downtown averaged greater than 90,000 employees consistent with weekday — the second-highest determine since March 2020. It’s a 14% building up from July 2023 and 62% of the day-to-day employee foot site visitors observed in July 2019.
Even supposing some employees are coming again, many are nonetheless in faraway and hybrid paintings kinds that experience helped gas Seattle’s prime workplace emptiness charges. Whilst the town ponders the tricky and dear process of probably changing some unused workplace house into housing, McIntyre stated they’re running with huge tech firms, different employers, belongings house owners and builders on further ingenious methods.
“What are the levers that the town can pull to proceed to make the ones areas horny and energetic?” he stated, including that during cooperation with the Mayor’s Place of job, the Place of job of Financial Building is operating on an “appeal technique” to take to the San Francisco Bay Space later this 12 months. There, they’ll communicate to firms which can be having a look at opening satellite tv for pc workplaces in Seattle.
“The truth is that as there are depressed workplace values, that implies there’s some nice offers,” McIntyre stated. “And so we’re seeing firms begin to see Seattle as undervalued, and wish to come right here and open up house.”
In the meantime, as the town seems towards the finishing touch of 15 years of building alongside the Seattle waterfront subsequent spring, in addition to the coming of 2026 FIFA Males’s International Cup football event and an inflow of holiday makers, it’s additionally selling a want to make over the southern finish of downtown as a “bookend” to what has been created in South Lake Union.
Whilst that finish of the town wouldn’t have 50,000 Amazon workers to fill workplace structures, Burgess did say the early making plans procedure is a “massive alternative for the town,” particularly because it pertains to residential construction for a space that is going from Columbia Side road at the north to Holgate Side road at the south, and from Interstate 5 to Elliott Bay.
“We don’t know the solutions to the whole lot but,” Burgess stated. “However I believe what South Lake Union has proven us, and what the waterfront has proven us, is we will do those large issues that require a large number of cooperation with a large number of other stakeholders.”
