Amazon’s returning workforce helps Seattle feel `a lot like 2019`

The area around Amazon`s downtown Seattle headquarters is bustling, with employees lining up at restaurants and food trucks at lunchtime on a recent Wednesday.

Groups of badge-wearing workers chat as they carry bags of food back into the tech giant`s high-rise offices along Lenora Street between 6th and 7th Avenue. Some stop by the popular banana stand at the base of The Spheres — glass conservatories serving as employee and tourist hubs at the Amazon campus — where “banista” Jessamyn Reichmann hands out free fruit from a silver Airstream trailer on weekdays.

“Activity has picked up universally," Reichmann said. "There’s more foot traffic and commuters, and it’s more crowded in the buildings since January."

After three full months of Amazon`s requirement that workers come to offices five days a week, downtown Seattle foot traffic — especially in the area around its headquarters — has reached daily averages not seen since before the pandemic hit in early 2020, the latest data from the Downtown Seattle Association shows.
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RSK: A bit of conflicting reports here. Some businesses say the foot traffic is helping them while others say inflation has raised prices and people are complaining and not coming to their establishments. I would say it is a good thing.