Cell phone tracking reveals downtown Edmonton half as busy as pre-COVID-19: report

EDMONTON -

Downtown Edmonton foot traffic is on the rise – but the core is still only about half as busy as it was before COVID-19 – according to a study that crunches cell phone traffic.

Global commercial real estate firm Avison Young acquires the data and produces a weekly vitality index.

Edmonton sat at 2,496 "average weekday foot traffic" for the week of Nov. 1, compared to about 5,500 in March 2020.

The index crashed to about 1,500 in mid-March 2020, as pandemic closures were ramping up.

"We are working with a service provider who is providing us with this intelligence, and the demographic studies of where the movement of cell phone traffic is, where it's coming from, where they're going," said Cory Wosnack, Managing Director at Avison Young.

"There has never been a more important time to have real-time data…We can't just rely on anecdotal perspective and we can't just rely on census studies that are years old."

Calgary led the country in "weekday visitor volume" numbers, with Edmonton second at -53 per cent.

Ottawa was last in foot traffic return, still down 87 per cent from pre-COVID-19.

Wosnack attributed Alberta's lead to fewer COVID-19 restrictions, more people driving downtown instead of taking public transit which might scare some people away and Rogers Place.

"The majority of these people are actually coming to a hockey event or a concert, they're filling the restaurants. I think we underestimated the impact of what Rogers Place would mean to our downtown," he said.

'NOT WHAT IT USED TO BE'

The numbers Wosnack is seeing in his office roughly match what Cierra Jacobs is seeing on the ground.

She's a server and bartender at Bottega 104 down the street from Rogers Place.

"(Foot traffic) is starting to go up a bit with people slowly coming back into the office, but it's not what it used to be," Jacobs said.

"On a Friday lunch we would definitely fill, maybe even have people waiting at the door, but it's maybe half of that now."

Wosnack acknowledges that some employees may never go back to commuting downtown, instead opting to work at home.

The challenge for his company – which makes money off of office leasing – is to show clients and their employees the social value and service convenience of being downtown.

"The work environment is about the experience now, and so the need for amenities within the office, or in the office building is critical," he said.

"Gyms and restaurants and coffee shops around the building are really important. We even see now a trend of some office buildings becoming pet-friendly. So this hospitality feel, this warmth, of being in an office building now is driving the interest of employees to come back."

Edmonton was fourth in return-to-office in North America behind only Calgary, Austin and Boston.