Foot traffic in major US downtown cores continued to improve in September but remains 40% lower than 2019 levels, a new study from Springboard reveals.
September's figure marks an uptick from August numbers (44.7% below 2019 levels) and July metrics (down 44.1%). But as employees continue to work from home at least part of the time, the gap between workday and weekend foot traffic has widened. Pedestrian traffic is 44.6% lower than 2019 numbers during the workweek and 26.7% lower than 2019 for weekend days.
Similarly, foot traffic has shifted in US downtowns throughout the day. The early morning/breakfast period foot traffic gap over 2019 numbers remains at -46.5%, whereas the afternoon gap stands at -37%. Traffic in the evening is the strongest, at -32.6% over 2019 levels.
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While pedestrian traffic in downtowns has bounced back more during weekends than during the working week, it appears that wider mask wearing mandates implemented during September have adversely impacted consumers' leisure visits to downtowns on Saturday and Sunday, slowing the recovery to the 2019 level for pedestrian traffic, says Diane Wehrle, Springboard's Marketing & Insights Director. And "with Halloween at the end of October—the first notable trading event of the key festive trading period which normally generates trips to stores by consumers to stock up on costumes, decorations and candy—retailers will undoubtedly have a weather eye on consumers' shopping behavior as an indicator of what they may expect from Black Friday and the lead up to Christmas."
The plight of the urban core continues to be up for debate, especially as companies put off solidifying their return-to-office strategies as the pandemic drags on. Suburban office properties have been big winners for the sector, with prices increasing 14.8% annually for assets outside cities' urban cores. CBD prices posted a 3.7% decline, meanwhile.
Since the start of the pandemic, foot traffic/people coming to work in their offices in the US declined the least in Boston (55.2%) and the most in Miami (88.8%), according to data from Avison Young.
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