Sources: San Francisco Business Times, Placer.ai

In July, San Francisco registered the biggest improvement in people visiting office buildings compared to the previous year, according to a study by Placer.ai that looked at 11 major cities.

Despite the challenges San Francisco faced during the pandemic, there was a 38.3% increase in the number of visits to office buildings compared to the previous year.

However, the foot traffic in San Francisco is still 56% lower than it was in July 2019, before the pandemic. Across the country, office visits were down by 37% in July compared to July 2019.

Placer.ai mentioned in a blog post that the return-to-office policies are slowly starting to make an impact on a national level.

The study included data from cities like Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., New York, Bostin, Miami, Chicago, Atlanta, Denver, Dallas and Houston.

The surprise is that the positive trend happened during the summer vacation season and is encouraging news for those working to improve downtown San Francisco.

Robbie Silver, from “Downtown SF Partnership” mentioned that completely remote work might not be sustainable in the long term for some industries, and more companies could require employees to return to the office.

In a recent move, Zoom asked employees within 50 miles of an office to come in for two days a week.

The “Downtown SF Partnership “is planning to expand, moving to a larger office and hiring more staff. This growth aims to bring more people downtown for events and activities outside of regular work hours.

Robbie Silver hopes to build on this positive trend, especially with the possibility of more people returning to the office after Labor Day. The goal is to encourage the creative class to come back and contribute to downtown San Francisco’s growth.