Just like the kitchen is the heart of a home, the downtown is the heart of a city, and downtowns across the country have been severely impacted by the pandemic.
According to a March 2023 report in the Washington Examiner looking at office occupancy rates in downtown areas across country, overall, rates are averaging at 50.1% of pre-pandemic levels. According to our Downtown Development District, New Orleans is doing quite well at about 88.7%, far better than San Francisco’s dismal 44%.
Thanks to a massive boom in office space construction between 2010 and 2021, Houston too sits at a lower occupancy rate of 60%.
The rise of remote work emptying office buildings, retail stores closing as online shopping accelerated, a rise in crime — we’ve seen evidence of all of these nationwide issues in downtown New Orleans. In order to get an insider account of what’s going on, we were fortunate enough to have the opportunity to pick the brain of noted real estate guru Mike Siegel in our cover Q&A this month.
Siegel’s love for downtown New Orleans is evident as he shares the opportunities that have presented themselves with these challenges. While New Orleans may be among the most haunted cities in America, Siegel sees no threat of our downtown becoming a ghost town. Instead — like is happening in many downtowns — empty office space is finding new life as condos, hotels and apartments. Siegel suggests that the Central Business District could even be a prime spot to help solve one of our biggest problems — thanks to historic tax credits — by serving as an ideal location for much-needed workforce housing.
For those businesses trying to draw employees back to the office, Siegel offers some advice: “Want to get your employees back? Give them a good place to work.”
To that end, I was recently drawn back to our office to spend some time recording in our new podcast studio! Our weekly BizTalks podcast has been a labor of love that our Biz team started during the pandemic as a way to check in with movers and shakers throughout the region. Now, at 162 episodes and counting, we’ve upped our game thanks to the hard work of Renaissance Publishing Digital Media Editor and BizTalks Podcast Producer Kelly Massicot. Check out all of our episodes wherever you get your podcasts, or at BizNewOrleans.com. Want to be a guest on our show or have someone you’d like to hear from? Drop a note to editorial@bizneworleans.com.
Thanks for reading,
Kimberley Singletary
Editor
Kimberley@BizNewOrleans.com
