Despite population growth, downtown Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»saw fewer people visit the district last year, according to a report that the Downtown Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»Business Improvement Association (Downtown Van) released Thursday morning.
Further, people who visited the district did so less frequently than in previous years, said the organization's State of Downtown 2025 report, which acquired data from Environics Analytics, which largely used mobile-phone data and information it gathered from various sources.
Downtown Van's report said that in 2024 there were about 106 million visits to the 90-block area that it considers to be downtown. That was about 7.8-per-cent fewer visits than in 2023.
Downtown Van CEO Jane Talbot told BIV that the population in the downtown peninsula rose about 2.9 per cent to slightly less than 141,000 people last year. The report did not include visits made by people who live in the area to be visits to the area.
"Between 2021 and 2023, downtown Vancouver’s population grew faster than that of the city or region," the report said.
Downtown Van was able to determine what it called "unique visits" to the district. This metric, which counted each individual visitor only once, found 2.2 million unique visitors to the 90-block area, or a 4.5-per-cent decline from 2023.
Last year saw downtown Vancouver's first annual decline in visits since the start of the pandemic, given that the region saw visit increases in each of the past three years.
The exact area that Downtown Van considers to be downtown zigzags around, but at points stretches as far south as Pacific Boulevard, as far east as Hamilton Street, as far north as Burrard Inlet and as far west as Jervis Street.
This is the region that Downtown Van considers to be the downtown Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»district | Downtown Van
Visits to Granville Street rise
Perhaps surprisingly, Granville Street was the corridor that saw the biggest gain in visits. Downtown Van determined that the strip saw an 11.6-per-cent increase in visits. This came despite many homeless people sitting in doorways, and what .
Downtown Van's report addressed another challenge with Granville Street.
"Granville Street has been impacted the most by downtown’s persistent storefront vacancy, creating challenges for its success as an entertainment district," the report said. "The street’s vacancy rose from 22.1 per cent to 29.3 per cent in 2024."
Notable businesses that closed on Granville Street last year include 8th & Main, Cinema Public House and Helly Hansen.
"We all know that we're working really hard to help address those issues on the street, but they're real," Talbot said. "They would have an impact, but we're also seeing foot traffic come back because there is a lot going on downtown."
The report said the decline in visits downtown is disproportionally due to fewer visits from locals.
"Downtown visits originating within Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»fell by 12 per cent in 2024, the largest relative decline of any city in the Metro Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»region," it said.
The share of visits to the area from people who live in other parts of the city fell to 50.4 per cent, from 52.9 per cent a year ago.
"The three next largest drops in relative visits were from West Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»(down 9.6 per cent), the City of North Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»(down 7.7 per cent), and the District of North Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»(down 7.1 per cent)," the report said. "Burnaby and Surrey, which generate the second- and third-highest volumes of downtown visits, maintained relatively stable visitation patterns, each experiencing only slight declines of just over one per cent."
Out-of-province visitors picked up some of the slack.
Despite the overall decline in visits, downtown Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»saw a 50.3-per-cent increase in visitors from other provinces. Out-of-province visits rose to 5.5 per cent of all visits, from 3.6 per cent in 2023.
"This growth reflects both increased tourism and business travel recovery," the report said. "Calgary accounted for the most visits to Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»from cities outside B.C., accounting for 1.2 per cent of total downtown visits in 2024, and exceeding visit shares from Port Coquitlam, Maple Ridge, and the Township of Langley."
Robson Street saw its visitor count rise in 2024 while Alberni and West Hastings streets saw declines
Robson Street was a bright spot with a 2.2-per-cent gain in visits, the report said.
New tenants on Robson Street include Adidas last year moving into a large flagship store at the corner of Robson and Burrard streets, Marshalls this month moving into space vacated by sister brand Winners at the corner of Robson and Granville streets, and Roots planning to move to a new store at the corner of Robson and Hornby streets. That new Roots location is set to replace one that has operated for nearly 30 years at 1001 Robson St., at the corner of Robson and Burrard streets.
The downtown districts that saw the steepest decline in visitors were Alberni Street (down 11.7 per cent) and West Hastings Street (down 3.3 per cent,) according to Downtown Van.
"Alberni Street performed well in previous years thanks to the street’s luxury and experiential retail motivating in-person purchases," the report said. "However, this corridor lost key tenants in recent years, including Brooks Brothers and Michael’s."
The report did not detail why West Hastings Street's visit count might be down, but report author Sean Bailey told BIV that he thinks it stemmed from the broader trend of fewer visits to downtown.
The report lamented that the Hudson's Bay Co. plans to close its 637,000-square-foot, nine-storey Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»flagship store by the end of June. That building, at the northeast corner of Granville and West Georgia streets, is kitty corner to Cadillac Fairview's 230,000-square-foot former Nordstrom site, which has been empty since June 2023.
Retail analyst and DIG360 owner for the surrounding area.
Talbot said that the report had some good news.
"We have three key areas of strength: tourism, major events and transit ridership are all up," she said.
She added that she thinks her area is "holding our own," when it comes to retail spending.
Large Granville Street landowner Kerry Bonnis told BIV that a positive development on his street is cinema-giant Cineplex Inc. (TSX:CGX) last December opening its Rec Room complex on the west side of Granville Street’s 800-block.
Bonnis is . He wants to build a 43-storey tower on site, immediately north of the Commodore Ballroom, and a 39-storey tower just south of that iconic concert venue. Those towers' proposed heights are 451 feet and 395 feet.
