PORTLAND, Oregon — A recent report from the research firm Colliers paints a bleak picture of the current state of office vacancies in Portland: the city has an office space vacancy rate of roughly 30% in the Central Business District, the highest rate in the U.S.
Colliers said that number could climb near 40% at some point in 2024.
"Every city has its challenges; there is no perfect place, but downtown is in crisis. And just like if you had a kid that was sick, you would get to the hospital, we need to do triage on downtown," said Jordan Schnitzer, business developer and philanthropist.
Schnitzer said downtown businesses have faced a number of challenges over the last few years. From the COVID-19-era work-from-home policies to the city’s ongoing drug and homelessness crisis to high local taxes, Schnitzer believes businesses have had many reasons to leave the central city.
"Every city you think about, the jewel of any metropolitan area is the downtown. We can't let Portland just go down the tube," said Schnitzer. "We need the equivalent of roughly 60,000 to 70,000 workers a day down to Portland — to fill up the office vacancies. We need to work together strategically to get those people back," said Schnitzer.
Schnitzer added that restaurants and retail establishments have been hurt by the lack of office workers in the city. But despite the pessimistic outlook from Colliers, he believes Portland can still turn things around.
“We have to start with an attitude of saying, 'Hey, this is still the city that we love; this is still our home.' Let’s get together, get great minds together, a diverse group of people with all different ideas. Let’s look at how we get Portland's downtown back on track. We can do it," said Schnitzer.
Download the KGW News app: Download for iPhone here | Download for Android here
Stream newscasts for free on KGW+ on Roku, Amazon Fire and AppleTV: How to add app to your device here
See a typo in this article? Email web@kgw.com for corrections.