For decades, city planners told us the same story: pack downtown with office towers, fill them with workers, and retail will thrive.
And for a while, it looked like they were right ... if you only measured sales from 9 to 5.
By 6 PM, though, it was tumbleweeds.
The latest Cushman Wakefield report on reimagining urban real estate portfolios drops some hard numbers that confirm what retailers have known for years. Office vacancy rates in major cities now hover between 20-30%, with some markets hitting crisis levels above 35%.
Downtown foot traffic remains down 40-50% from pre-pandemic levels in many cities. Property values for commercial real estate have dropped 15-25% in urban cores nationwide.
But here's the kicker: this isn’t just a pandemic hangover, it’s a structural change that was always coming.
Remote work didn’t kill downtown retail, it just exposed how fragile the foundation was.
Now those same planners are scrambling. They're talking about "reimagining urban portfolios" and "adaptive reuse strategies." But here's what they won't tell you: this was always going to fail.
The truth? You can’t build a thriving retail ecosystem on borrowed customers.
The 9-to-5 Mirage
Walk through many downtown business districts at 5 PM. Ghost town. The restaurants that survived lunch rushes can't make dinner work. The coffee shops that thrived on morning commuters close by 3 PM. The specialty stores that depended on office workers picking up gifts or grabbing dry cleaning operate on life support.
This isn't a retail problem. It's a planning problem that became a retail crisis.
Office workers were never your customers; they were the building’s customers. They came to your store because they had to, not because they wanted to.
When remote work gave them a choice, they stopped coming downtown.
Real customers - the ones who keep your lights on - come because they want to. They visit in the evenings when they go to restaurants and on weekends. They browse, linger, and bring friends. They build relationships with store owners.
That difference is everything.
Small Towns Fell Into the Same Trap
Don’t think this is just a big-city problem. The report's data on secondary markets tells the same story. Small cities that built their main street strategy around attracting office buildings or government workers show similar patterns-office occupancy down 25-40%, retail struggling to survive.
I’ve seen small towns build around courthouses or bank HQs — and when those offices consolidate, retail follows them out the door. The data proves what I’ve seen for years: downtown retail health tracks with residential density, not office density.
The smart operators in those towns never relied on office traffic in the first place - they built their base from people who live there, not just people who work there.
The Real Estate Reality
Property owners got drunk on office lease rates. Why rent to a retailer for $25 per square foot when you can get $60 from an accounting firm?
But here's what those property owners are learning: an empty building at $60 per square foot makes you exactly zero dollars. A thriving retail tenant at $25 creates value for the entire block.
Cities with the highest office vacancy rates also saw the steepest declines in retail foot traffic - a cause-and-effect relationship, not a coincidence.
Mixed-use isn't some urban planning trend. It's how commerce actually works like the Americana in Glendale, CA. People need places to live, work, eat, shop, and gather. When you separate those functions, you kill the natural flow that makes neighborhoods work.
It’s like when department stores put all the jeans together in one department, all men’s tops together in one department, all belts in one department. It killed add-on sales.
The most successful downtown areas I've consulted in have one thing in common: they never put all their eggs in the office basket. They kept residential units above stores. They protected space for restaurants and entertainment.
And while many downtowns have a Stroll and Sip or some promotion first Fridays, that’s a blip. They have to create reasons for people to be there at 11 AM on a Tuesday, not just 8 PM with free food on a weekend.
What Retailers Can Actually Control
You can’t rewrite your city’s zoning laws, but you can stop running your business like you’re still serving a captive lunch-hour crowd.
- Adjust hours so real customers can shop after work and on weekends.
- Create displays that stop people in their tracks.
- Build community relationships that bring them back.
Put on the guide jacket: your job is not to serve whoever wanders in at noon - it’s to lead customers into experiences that make them choose you.
If you’re scheduling your best staff for weekday lunch rush instead of Friday afternoon or Saturday, you’re betting on the wrong customer.
Think in Complete Solutions, Not Individual Stores
One retailer alone can’t turn a downtown around. But a cluster of stores, restaurants, and entertainment options - working together - can create a reason for people to spend an entire evening in the district.
That only happens if you coordinate:
- Common evening hours.
- Complementary events.
- Cross-promotions that feel natural, not forced.
Look a furniture store, a coffee shop, and a bookstore aren't three separate businesses competing for the same customers. They're three parts of a complete experience that none of them can create alone.
But this only works if all three businesses operate like they're part of the same ecosystem. .
Stop Waiting for Rescue
City councils will keep dangling tax breaks for office towers. Developers will keep selling ‘mixed-use’ projects that are mostly office. Don’t wait. The real problem isn’t too few office workers - it’s building your business as if they’re your lifeline.
Build your customer base from people who choose to be in your community, not people who are required to be there. Create experiences that work at 5 PM on Friday, not just noon on Tuesday. Stock merchandise that solves real problems for real people, not convenient solutions for rushed office workers.
The problem isn’t too few office workers — it’s too much dependence on them.
The Bottom Line for Retailers and Associations
The office-worker retail model was always temporary. The future belongs to stores and districts that build their base from residents and destination shoppers - people who come because you’ve given them a reason.
That means:
- Selected evening hours and weekend events.
- Products that solve real needs for your community.
- Partnerships that make “park once, visit many” the norm.
If you’re not making these changes now, your real customers are already building habits with someone else. If you wait for the office crowd to save you, you’ll be waiting while your competitors win them over.
Your downtown doesn’t need more office buildings. It needs more reasons for people to choose to be there.
Start with your store. Start now.
