Talk now about downtown Portland.
It's a place that brings a
variety of very strong reactions.
Every time we bring it up,
there's a new report out that
might show an encouraging trend.
Might first some background.
Last week we told you about a story
from UC Berkeley that looked at
major cities across North America
and how well they have or have
not recovered from the pandemic.
That's in terms of people
spending time downtown.
They looked at cell phone data to
estimate how many people were visiting a
place and how they were moving around.
And then they compared the numbers.
From this past spring to 2019,
before COVID hit so hard,
it did not surprise a lot of you
to learn that Portland came in,
well, nearly last.
That'd be 60th out of 62 cities.
By their metrics,
Portland is only about 41% recovered
from the pandemic effects.
And that made sense to a lot of you,
Jan wrote.
I don't feel safe anywhere downtown.
I've been yelled at, followed,
and I refuse to put myself in harm's way.
The city must clean up downtown,
and this one from Patty.
And Mike says for many,
many years we went to the downtown
area for Symphony, Historical Society,
lectures, and other entertainment.
No longer do we feel safe
going to these evening events,
which we sometimes attended by
taking public transportation,
gun violence,
drug paraphernalia,
and overwhelming mounds of trash
will have to be thoroughly addressed
before we go downtown again.
And that's just a small section
of the comments that we got on
this story and we didn't get any
downtown defenders by the way.
But the group downtown Portland,
Clean and safe,
has a more positive spin on
what's happening downtown.
They released a study of their own
showing that visits to downtown
Portland are actually increasing,
and that's a good thing.
But here's the thing.
They compared this year's numbers
to last year's numbers not to 2019.
They concluded that downtown Portland
is seeing 64% more visitors in 2020.
Do then in 2021, which makes sense.
A lot of businesses were still closed in
2021 and most big events were cancelled.
So it is better now than when it was awful,
but not like before.
Clean and safe is calling it a
tremendous rebound from 2021.
OK, we'll give you that and that's great.
We had an interview scheduled with
them today to ask them about their study,
but they backed out.
They did say that Portland,
downtown Portland remains the
state's economic heartbeat.
And here's something interesting.
The study showed that.
People are coming downtown on the weekends.
You can see a big jump on Friday
and Saturday there compared with
the rest of the week.
And it does seem to increase
between 6:00 and 10:00 PM.
They concluded that people are coming
downtown for dinner and for recreation.
And if you've gone to any of the
downtown festivals this summer,
you've seen it for yourself.
People are coming down for
things like the Pride Festival.
There were thousands of people for that.
Same was true with the Blues Festival
and many of the Rose Festival events.
But how did the numbers actually shake out?
Clean and safe studies showed a
58% increase in Rose Festival
attendance compared to last year,
but an overall drop from before the
pandemic only about 71% of the 2019 levels.
We asked the Rose Festival about
their attendance this year,
and here's what they told us.
We cannot say with absolute
certainty what the exact number is.
I can say that on average,
because it rained every day of the festival,
by the way, that sounds like Portland,
and people have been away from it
for so long and maybe still hesitant
about public gatherings that our
numbers were down across the board.
For most every event,
parades and city fair included.
We also asked the Portland
Saturday market for their numbers.
They've had to limit operations in
the last two years and at one point
it seemed like they might not make it,
but they have.
Now they're back open on Saturdays
and they tell us that while they're
still gathering the numbers,
things are actually looking great.
They wrote the vendors who have
been at the market for many years,
have clearly reported that attendance is at,
if not higher than pre pandemic,
even though we are only open
on Saturdays this year,
they have all reported an increase
in sales and some have had the best.
Scales in over 25 years.
One thing both studies we've
been talking about agree on.
People are not coming downtown
to work in office jobs.
Both studies showed low numbers
during the day on weekdays.
The researchers from UC Berkeley told
us that cities like Portland aren't
recovering as quickly as others
because too much of the downtown
area is devoted to office jobs for
people who can work from home.
And you know what?
In many cases now they're doing just that.
They suggested that cities rethink
downtown areas and develop more
residential and recreational areas there.
We plan to follow up with the city
to get their thoughts on that,
but we also want to hear from you.
Would you go downtown for the festival
or to eat out or to see a show?
If not, why not?
What would have to change to make you
feel comfortable going down again?
Send us an e-mail.
The address is the story at kgw.com,
or leave us a voicemail,
503-226-5090.