Report ranks downtown Denver’s recovery 13th of 15 downtown areas in the Southwest

A report released Wednesday by the Greenwood Village-based nonpartisan research organization Common Sense Institute ranks downtown Denver 13th out of 15th downtown areas in the Southwest in terms of post-COVID recovery.

“The Road to Recovery: Downtown Denver” was authored by CSI Urban Development Fellow Kelly Brough, Director of Policy Research DJ Summers and Senior Research Analyst Erik Gamm.  It examines the strides downtown Denver is making post-COVID and where that recovery has yet to fully materialize.

According to the study, office vacancies are higher than ever, downtown foot traffic is recovering more slowly than other cities and non-office retail and restaurants, already burdened by climbing payroll costs, have less traffic to drive sales.

“To the extent that it is possible to know which factors are most directly related to a sluggish downtown recovery, homelessness and crime, particularly property crime, are as important as the remote work trends that have emptied offices,” the report says.

Key findings:

• Foot traffic has not recovered – Denver’s downtown foot traffic is only 67% of what it was in 2019—16th lowest among the 55 U.S. cities examined, according to the University of Toronto School of Cities.
• Downtown Denver’s office building vacancy rate more than doubled since 2019. Rates spiked in the early 2020s and reached their highest levels in 2023 at 24%, up from 11% in 2019.
• Commercial vacancies remain near record highs – There is 13.4 million square feet of vacant office and retail space in downtown Denver – the footage of eight Empower Field stadiums.
• Downtown Denver has the highest office vacancy rate among Front Range cities with concentrated downtown offices at nearly a quarter vacant.
• The average downtown Denver gross rent paid by office renters was $37.60 per square foot in 2023, the highest on record.
• Inflation has boosted taxable sales revenue but growth lags other metro regions – Even though Denver’s average monthly net state taxable sales increased 41% from 2019 to 2024, it increased by the lowest rate among 12 Front Range counties.
• If Denver were recovering taxable sales at the average 92% rate of the other counties, it would have $646 million more in taxable sales in the first half of 2024.
• If Denver’s taxable sales had recovered at the average rate of Front Range counties, they would have nearly doubled in the first half of 2024.

The study also makes policy recommendations to achieve Downtown Denver recovery. View the report here.