As US downtowns shed office workers, officials shop retail solutions

Public officials across the country are getting more creative in their strategies to rejuvenate their downtowns five years after the pandemic decimated foot traffic.

In San Francisco, leaders and landlords are offering small businesses free rent on retail space. Stakeholders in Birmingham, Alabama, are repositioning vacant offices into new storefronts and restaurants. In Denver, bodegas and banks are replacing offices downtown as city stakeholders hope to transition the retail base from focusing on workers to catering to residents.

City and economic development officials around the United States are looking to their ground floors as a way to fill gaps left behind by the absence of commuting workers.

"It`s about adapting to a new normal and thinking about what the function of our downtown is now," Sarah Wiebenson, the senior manager of economic development at the Downtown Denver Partnership, told CoStar News.

Local legislators are among the 25,000 people who have descended upon Las Vegas to attend the annual International Council of Shopping Centers conference in an attempt to boost their retail ecosystems and rebuild the foot traffic...   ...more

RSK: This works if the downtown has a vibrant residential component to it...otherwise you are hoping to build it and will they come? Still need those workers to visit the retail downtown for the establishments to make a go of it.