Tony Wang was beaming.
Sales at Yumbit, the lunchtime food truck he works at in downtown Seattle, had been doing well in recent days, so much so they may need more staff.
Wang’s truck is located on the corner of 6th Avenue and Lenora Street, the shiny heart of what some here playfully call “Amazonia”, after Amazon, the largest employer in the downtown area. And the extra customers that he and similar outlets are scrambling to serve are some of the 55,000 employees Amazon ordered to return to the office to work at least three days a week starting in May.
“It’s been a 20 to 30% increase with people coming back to work,” Wang said about sales at the truck. “It’s made a big difference.”
Nearly three years after the pandemic shut down much of downtown Seattle, Amazon’s move was eyed intensely in the city. CEO Andy Jassy told staff in February he hoped their return could be a “boost for the thousands of businesses located around our urban headquarter locations”.
It’s a hope the city’s mayor, Bruce Harrell, shared days later in his state of the city address: “I’m very pleased employers like Amazon recently announced and recognise that coming back to work downtown is a great thing.”
It’s been several challenging years for Seattle, parts of which have struggled for decades with problems including drugs, the great recession and homelessness.
The pandemic posed new challenges. Without the thousands of office workers pouring into high rises each weekday, once busy streets in the city’s downtown became empty. Stores had few customers; millions of dollars in potential sales taxes were lost. The buzz and bustle associated with a large group of commuters disappeared. In parts of the city, reports of crime increased as well. Seattle’s sales tax revenue in 2020 was down more than $46m, a decline of 13% from 2019, according to a Washington state report.
That year also saw many demonstrations in support of racial justice, and a month-long occupation of one neighborhood, known as the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP), that forced shops ranging from “mom and pop” shops to department stores such as Nordstrom to board over their windows.
Pandemic-era restrictions lasted longer in Washington state than in many places. And even as Covid-related regulations eased, business did not fully pick up again. The Downtown Seattle Association, comprising businesses, nonprofits and residents, said only 43% of all office workers have returned to their desks. In the first quarter of this year, a quarter of downtown offices were either vacant or had been sublet, the Seattle Times has reported.
Recent layoffs in the tech industry have added fresh challenges. In March, Amazon laid off more than 2,300 employees in the Seattle area. Microsoft has cut about 1,000 staffers in the region.
Harrell, 64, a Democrat who took office in January 2022, campaigned as a business friendly candidate ready to help the economy, and address controversies with the police force, which for a decade had operated under federal supervision.
“I’m bullish on the future of downtown,” he said in his address. “It’s the time for bold action. That’s why our long-term plan center around downtown as a sort of a laboratory for the future.”
Harrel has floated changing zoning codes to convert empty office space in the neighborhood to housing. He envisions new hotels and restaurants in the area where several sports stadiums are located.
Although he has said recovery has to involve everyone, he thinks flagship firms such as Amazon can kickstart a return to a more vibrant city.
“From the remote work revolution to ever-evolving retail landscape, the issues facing our downtown are not unique to Seattle,” Harrell said. “But what is unique is the resources we have.”
Amazon shares Harrell’s vision that it can be a force in the revitalization. John Schoettler, Amazon VP Corporate Real Estate, said in a statement that the company’s downtown campus supports an “additional 300,000 indirect jobs across the region”.
“We know we have an important role to play in the recovery of Seattle’s downtown,” he said. “We’ve always been committed to the economic vibrancy of the city and the entire Puget Sound region. That’s why we’ve invested in urban, downtown campuses that create new opportunities for both our employees and the local community.”
The company has fervent critics here, too. They have blamed it for pushing up housing and business rents. A 2017 report by real estate company Zillow estimated that since Amazon moved its headquarters to the South Lake Union area in 2010, the associated boom saw the cost of renting a 650-square foot one-bedroom apartment increase by $44 a month.
Others have argued that no single company can reverse the fortunes of a town. “Downtown runs on people. Bringing more people back downtown is a multifaceted endeavor and no single action will solve it,” said Markham McIntyre, director of the Seattle office of economic development.
There are also demands that the development Harrell envisions benefits everyone. Here, as in many American cities, Black-owned businesses suffered the most during the pandemic, the result, according to experts, of historical structures that has made it more difficult to access credit and capital, among other challenges.
Some local businesses in recent years made a point to advertise themselves as “Black-owned” in an attempt to encourage loyalty or earn new customers. A study by the University of Washington found any boost was short lived. “In the long run, especially the last months of 2020, the Black-owned businesses declined faster than those restaurants that didn’t reveal their ownership,” said Bo Zhao, associate professor of geography at the University of Washington, who carried out the study using data gathered by companies such as Yelp.
The wealth gap between Black and white families in the city is one of the biggest in the country, said Ernest Kelly, the founder of Seattle Black Businesses, a nonprofit that helps people network.
Data from King county, where Seattle is located, shows the median net worth of a Black family was $23,000 in 2019, or 5% of that of white households at $456,000. Nationally, in 2019, the median white family had a net worth of $188,200, almost eight times that of the median Black family at $24,100.
Black and Latino people make up 15 % of Seattle’s population, yet they run fewer than 5% of businesses, Kelly said. “All we want to be able to do as Black businesses is compete.”
Kelly said the city has made some strides. He welcomed the Seattle Restored project, supported in part by the city, which has helped put Black and minority business in previously vacant buildings to give them a presence in the downtown.
Groups such as the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, which has more than 2,200 members, including Amazon, are hopeful about the benefits of the return to work. CEO Rachel Smith said the downtown generated half of the city’s tax revenues and was crucial to the funding of all services.
“We applaud the private sector for playing its part in supporting downtown’s recovery – and encourage more of it,” she said.
In and around the Amazon hub, things have certainly become busier. On a recent morning, Capelli’s barber shop located next to Amazon appeared to be packed.
“It was slow [during the pandemic] but since then it’s been busy,” says stylist Nick Anselmo. Why does he think that is? “We’re busy, because [getting your haircut is] a necessity”.
Dylan Simpson, a 23-year-old bike courier who also delivers for restaurants, says there’s been a lot more buzz since workers came back.
Sashe Vanchovski, general manager at the Potbelly Sandwich Shop, next to the Amazon offices, said many of the Amazon employees he serves would “rather work from home”. But he’s been pleased by the return to work, as it led to a boost in sales. He does not know precisely how much, but he knows sales are up: “The impact is positive.”
What remains unclear, is though the city will bag the extra sales tax from workers now having to buy their lunches or coffees three days a week, how much benefit will ripple beyond the few city blocks surrounding Amazon’s headquarters.
Harrell’s office said the mayor was not available for an interview. A city spokesperson said there is no precise estimate as to how much extra revenue may be generated. The spokesperson also said Amazon had not received a change to its tax status as part of the return to work, as some had speculated it might.
Mayet Dalila helps young entrepreneurs. She and her son, Olu Dixon, head It’s Never 2 Early 2 Create & Innovate, a project showing off products and services offered by Black residents ranging from the ages of 4 to 24.
Their project is located in a previously empty building in the city’s Belltown neighborhood, a space it found through the Seattle Restored project.
“Being Black and being in business is an uphill battle,” Dalila said.
The building next door has been taken over by Erica Vasquez Jun and Jessica Ghyvoronsky. Their project, River, has hosted art shows and performances.
They are located just a few blocks from Amazon’s main Seattle campus. So far they’ve not seen a “lot of foot traffic” said Vasquez Jun, but they’d love it if some Amazon workers used it to host an event.
She added: “We want to see downtown Seattle come back to life. So I think having people come back downtown is a good thing.”
