Weekends are said to drive downtown activity though office workers remain elusive.
This was downtown Portland’s busiest summer in terms of pedestrian traffic since the pandemic.
That’s according to the latest semi-annual foot traffic report of the Downtown Portland Clean & Safe district, which found that in the first eight months of 2025, a “surge” of visitor traffic took place in the city’s 213-block downtown core.
Through August, more than 21,450,000 people visited the downtown core, or the equivalent of a 5.6% increase in foot traffic over 2024. And downtown saw consecutive year-over-year growth from March through August, a first since the pandemic began.
“Strong weekend activity and a packed calendar of cultural events have sparked sustained waves of foot traffic downtown,” reads the district’s report. “Downtown Portland’s foot traffic story in 2025 is one of resilience and renewed momentum.”
The month of January saw the largest gain with an increase of 22% over last year, the milder weather this year thought to be a factor.
Saturday traffic is up 6.6% over 2024, and Saturday is consistently downtown’s busiest day, followed by Friday, Thursday and Sunday. Unsurprisingly, they’re drawn by downtown anchors like Powell’s Books and Nordstrom as well as major events correspond with upticks in foot traffic. These include mainstays like the Portland Rose Festival, Blues Festival, Project Pabst, Pride and PDX Live concerts at Pioneer Courthouse Square, and in its second year in Portland, the Rockstar Energy Open.
A number of factors have contributed to a decided vibe shift downtown. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, tourists and office workers disappeared from downtown practically overnight, driving the retail vacancy rate upward. Then a Black man was murdered by a white Minneapolis police officer, sparking protests in downtown that stretched for months. And later that year, Oregon voters opted to decriminalize hard drugs at a time when the deadly synthetic opioid fentanyl was starting its spread.
In 2023, possession of hard drugs like cocaine, LSD and fentanyl were once again criminalized with a bill in the Oregon Legislature. But despite that reversal — and the fact that public drug use was not legal at any point — downtown Portland has grappled with public perceptions as unsafe and abandoned by businesses. A 2024 poll by The Oregonian found that nearly four of every five Portland voters had a negative view of downtown with half stating their view was “strongly negative.”
The latest foot traffic numbers appear to tell a nuanced tale, according to the Clean & Safe district. Visitors have largely returned to downtown while office workers have not. Through August, overall foot traffic downtown was still 70% of 2019 visitor volume, according to Downtown Portland Clean & Safe with worker visits downtown at approximately 56%, which is below the national average of 73%. Portland’s figures trail those of Seattle and Denver but are higher than those of San Francisco and Los Angeles.
The resurgence has been driven by major events and public-private partnerships, Mayor Keith Wilson wrote in a statement.
“Portland’s heart is beating stronger and stronger every month,” Wilson wrote. “The businesses, unique events and activations downtown remind us of what makes this city so special. We’ll keep building on this momentum to ensure downtown is lively every day of the week.”
The busiest downtown intersections this year have been SW 10th Ave. and Burnside St. in front of Powell’s Books followed by SW Park Ave. and Burnside St. at the Cart Blocks and SW 4th Ave. and Yamhill St. at the Pioneer Place retail hub. According to the foot traffic study, this shows that cultural and retail anchors like Powell’s, the Cart Blocks and Nordstrom’s are still major pedestrian magnets.
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