PORTLAND, Ore. — Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler wants downtown employers to bring remote and hybrid employees back into the office for at least 20 hours a week, starting Jan. 1, 2024.
In a letter sent to downtown Portland employers Thursday, Wheeler said this request is about more than just office productivity, it's also an effort to increase foot traffic downtown, which he said is "critical to the recovery and revitalization of our urban core."
"It activates the streets, and it gives businesses, our downtown restaurants, our bars, our retailers ... more clientele," Mayor Wheeler said in an interview.
Downtown Portland has struggled to recover since the pandemic. Some businesses have left, and while foot traffic has increased year over year, it has yet to return to pre-pandemic levels. Meanwhile, downtown business leaders have pleaded with the city to address homelessness, drug use and crime.
Ella Murray works downtown at Tender Loving Empire and said that often, it seems as if Portlanders have forgotten about the city or just choose not to spend time there.
"They’re like, 'I didn’t know anything was going on down here. I didn’t know there was a reason to be down here,'" Murray said.
Both Murray and another downtown employee, Grace Benavente, agree with the mayor that more foot traffic means more sales and support for downtown businesses.
"Knowing people who work downtown, I’m more likely to go and check out shops because there’s that in-person connection," Benavente. "I think a network of people who care about each other is going to improve business in general."
According to the mayor, the city has increased its efforts in recent months to make the area a "safe and welcoming place," assigning more Portland Police Bureau (PPB) officers to patrol downtown Portland on foot (with assistance from Oregon State Police) and increasing access to behavioral health services and shelters. Pop-up shops and an ice-skating rank and winter marketplace are also opening downtown for the holiday season.
"We have a role to play here, too," Wheeler acknowledged. "The streets need to be safe. They need to be clean. People don’t want to navigate through homeless camps."
RELATED: Despite a flood of ideas, insiders say Portland task force plan faces challenges on trash cleanup
In the letter, Wheeler wrote that more than half of all city workers, including police and fire employees, never worked remote or hybrid shifts during the pandemic, and starting April 1 of this year, hybrid and remote city employees were required to return to in-person work for a minimum of 20 hours a week.
"I'll be honest with you: there were a lot of people who were grumbling," Mayor Wheeler said. "They’re like, 'Why do we have to come back to work when everybody else is still remote?'"
Wheeler added that of the 7,000 city employees, about 10 were granted exemptions to work fully remote.
Although the letter focused on private businesses, the mayor also included nonprofits, academic institutions and other levels of government.
"We're also asking the public sector to step up, Multnomah County, Metro, the state through ODOT region 1," Wheeler said. "Those organizations are still largely remote."
KGW reached out to Multnomah County about this claim and a spokesperson responded, saying most County employees are back in the office.
"The majority of County employees are reporting in person (72% including 52% full time, and 19% hybrid) and have been since September 2021," a spokesperson for Multnomah County said. "Our employees report to 167 locations across the County so our impact of our return to in-person work is felt well beyond the Central City and downtown."
Download the KGW News app: Download for iPhone here | Download for Android here
Stream newscasts for free on KGW+ on Roku and Amazon Fire: How to add app to your device here
See a typo in this article? Email web@kgw.com for corrections