Longtime Lurker here. This seemed like the best place to put this (rather depressing?) stat on downtown activity after COVID. I was surprised how poorly we rank in terms of cell phone activity downtown since it SEEMS like we have a strong growing downtown. (It also shows Austin and Nashville at poor recovery downtown, for what that’s worth since they both seem to be doing well.) Anyway, just leaving it here and seeing what everyone thinks as it shows our cell phone activity downtown almost as bad as San Francisco’s “rebound” and we all see that THEIR downtown seems to be in a death spiral.
It’s about return to office being a limp balloon, not downtowns turning into dead zones. An office packed full of busy workers is going to generate so much more cell phone traffic than a thriving residential neighborhood, even with tall condos.
Even SF has plenty of exciting, thriving, growing residential districts downtown outside of FiDi.
My point is that we’d all like there to be MORE activity and MORE people downtown, not fewer. I don’t care if they’re working or playing or eating or what. It’s just a stat that I wish was a lot higher. Nothing good, regardless if it’s cause is work from home or whatever. That’s why i put it here.
We need more density and more people downtown not less, and this doesn’t seem to be a metric that’s especially healthy, at least to me.
It’s almost like housing was the story of the 2010s post great recession and now the 2020s, we’ll just sit back and watch the CRE market slooooowwwwly come back.
I do think it will come back cause Raleigh is still growing and not every company is completely office less. All that space will eventually find renters but it may take a decade.
I think that you will see more and more companies abandon places like RTP for everything but their lab spaces and supporting staff. Then I think you’ll see those companies establish hybrid work and collaboration centers in more interesting places like DT Raleigh & Durham, North Hills, Centennial Campus and the like for their knowledge worker staffs.
I think his point was that office workers generate more cell phone activity than residents and restaurant/ event attendees. Cell phone activity may be at 48%, but actual bodies on the ground might be at 100%. This doesn’t seem like a overly useful statistic
It also only took a snapshot of one week in April. I for one was traveling abroad that week, so my cell phone data would have been included. Given the rebound in tourism post-pandemic as people flock to international destinations they weren’t allowed to travel to for 3 years, a one-week snapshot in April may not have been a great data point either
Do we know if that data is total active cell phones (i.e # of people using cell phones) in the measured area or cell phone usage (total data consumed) ?
While acknowledging headwinds, the managing director of the local office of Jones Lang Lasalle has a positive long term outlook for the office market in the Triangle.
Saw him Saturday at the Harris Teeter in Hampstead near Topsail. He was wearing a Pendo T-shirt and shorts as well. He typically dresses like an average Joe, which is cooler than a suit to me.
You should be able to make a $10 shirt from the gas station look good, not the other way around.
It’s long past time to think about innovating building construction with flexible uses in mind. I’ve been thinking about this for a while, even before the pandemic shook things up. Sustainably is a big enough reason, but I think there are more market-driven reasons now that may actually spur change. Here’s hoping.
Nice legs…Lol
