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yesterday

New York Office Foot Traffic Tops Pre-Pandemic Benchmark, San Francisco Climbs National Rankings

Local return-to-office mandates have boosted city foot traffic despite nationwide visits staying about 22% below 2019 levels.

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Socially-distanced office desks are seen at the Fast office in the SoMa neighborhood of San Francisco, in 2021.
A solitary pedestrian crosses San Francisco's Battery Street, during a weekday in August of 2020, during the pandemic. The area would have previously been packed with people.
Office workers walk through the intersection of Montgomery and Sutter streets on the way to their jobs in the Financial District in San Francisco, in 2017. Office attendance dipped during the pandemic, but recent data suggests a surge in workers in the office.

Overview

  • New York City office visits in July rose 1.3% above July 2019 levels, making it the first major U.S. metro to surpass its pre-pandemic baseline, according to Placer.ai.
  • San Francisco recorded a 21.6% year-over-year increase in July office foot traffic and overtook Los Angeles and Denver in Placer.ai’s rankings, despite a 34.2% drop from its 2019 baseline.
  • Nationwide office attendance remained roughly 21.8% below July 2019, and Kastle security-access data shows peak weekday occupancy around 66% with average weekly rates under 55%.
  • Finance-sector firms in New York and in-office mandates among AI companies and Fortune 100 employers have been key drivers of local recoveries.
  • Analysts warn that cell-phone data may overstate employee returns by capturing business travel, events and tourism, and that methodological differences complicate direct city comparisons.