Earlier this month the Downtown Seattle Association (DSA) released their annual State of Downtown Economic Report—analyzing the city center’s growth of the past decade as well as looking to the future. The report reflected on downtown’s 2018 across their three strategic priorities: economic competitiveness; transportation & access; and the urban experience.
For the ninth year in a row Seattle added residents, jobs and visitors at a high pace, continuing its run as one of the fastest-growing cities in America. The DSA reviews several key indicators of the economic health of downtown: Live, tracking growth in population and residential development; Work, growth in employment and commercial development; Shop, retail growth; and Play, spending on dining, arts, culture, and entertainment.
Downtown Seattle Association
The DSA’s report not only covers the downtown retail core but a collection of “12 diverse neighborhoods that stretch from Elliott Bay up to Broadway, and from South Lander to the southern shores of Lake Union to the north.” The neighborhoods include: Uptown, South Lake Union, Capitol Hill, Belltown, Denny Triangle, Waterfront, West Edge, Retail Core, First Hill, Pioneer Square, Chinatown-International District, and Sodo.
Of the City of Seattle, Downtown is home to 87% of new office construction, 51% of jobs, and 11% of the city’s residents. There are now 300,000 jobs located downtown and 71 million square feet of office space—representing 79 percent of the total office inventory in Seattle. More than 1 in 10 Seattleites now call downtown home and since 2010 there has been an 89% increase in the number of children living downtown as well.
