The increase in office workers in the inner city signals a potential upturn in the local economy

CLEVELAND — The COVID-19 pandemic hit local businesses hard throughout downtown Cleveland as many office workers switched to remote work and reduced foot traffic to small businesses in the city. With redevelopment efforts still ongoing, the Downtown Cleveland Alliance sees positive trends for the city as many office workers return to downtown and new businesses continue to open in the vacant offices.

“Well, we’ve been working really hard over the past few months to bring office workers back downtown,” Michael Deemer, president and CEO of the Downtown Cleveland Alliance, told the downtown office workers compared to before the pandemic. We just released our recovery report for July – we have about 60% of office workers back downtown on any given day.”

This increase is partly due to some offices adapting to the needs of employees who have been working remotely in the past two years. Also at AMS, a management consultancy, the opening of new office space is helping to increase the number of employees working downtown.

“We have committed to 150 news jobs over the next three years and recognize that post-pandemic people will want to work differently,” said Nicky Hancock, AMS Americas President. We really listened to our employees, when they want to come into the office, how often they want to come into the office, what they want to do when they come into the office, and really took that feedback to reflect on how we designed the space.”

The new space in the AECOM building on East 9th Street offers central Cleveland office space for meetings and conferences, a dining area with views of downtown and the lakefront, and a variety of desk space options that enable collaboration and freedom.

“One of the reasons we chose this building is because there’s a nice gym downstairs, the facilities – there’s restaurants, there’s shops – and so I think it’s really important that our employees have coffee Being able to go out for a drink, be able to have a drink, and have lots of open spaces, lots of networking spaces, and most importantly, a collaboration center,” said Mark Jones, executive vice president of AMS You really continue to have that personal contact, and that’s also very important.”

AMS has been downtown for 10 years and the move to new premises across the street also reflects a new approach to engaging employees in being downtown.

“Over the last 10 years, we’ve seen more people actually live and move downtown, and people take on or facilities outside of downtown,” Jones said. “I think people have obviously been spending the last two and a half years working remotely, and we’ve definitely seen some really great feedback from people who want to be back in the office and really appreciate being back in an environment where they be able to network with co-workers and spend time discussing things and just have a place to work where they can be.”

Seeing how AMS has adjusted its approach to bring more workers downtown is something the Downtown Cleveland Alliance hopes will be replicated by other companies with offices that are either already downtown or have the opportunity to moving to the area can continue.

“We have seen a sustained immigration of companies to the inner city. Places like iHeartMedia are coming downtown, CrossCountry Mortgage is moving their headquarters here,” Deemer said. “Believe it or not, over the course of the pandemic, we’ve opened over 76 stores or moved downtown.”

And as the city sees more office workers returning downtown, it continues to see an increase in foot traffic and an increase in the economic impact these workers bring.

“Our goal is to bring at least 80% of the workforce downtown every day. I think when we get back to 80%, that means you know workers have a certain flexibility in their lives that they’ve come to appreciate and expect over the last few years,” Deemer said. “But it also means there’s enough foot of traffic to support small businesses throughout the day and allow them to really run their businesses effectively, seven days a week, day, night and weekends.”

Click here to read the Downtown Cleveland Alliance’s July Recovery Report.

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