The City of Brotherly Love has a new reputation as one of the emptiest office districts in America, sparking a debate over what’s keeping Philadelphia workers at home, the Wall Street Journal reported. According to one weekly measure, the majority of office workers in and around Philly continue to work remotely much of the time. Only Silicon Valley’s tech workers go to their San Jose, Calif., offices less when compared with prepandemic office-use rates, according to Kastle Systems, a security firm that tracks employee badge swipes in and out of buildings. New York City occupancy has consistently been more than 45% this year, while Dallas and Austin, Texas, office use has ranged between 50% and 65%. Kastle’s Back to Work Barometer shows Philadelphia’s office-occupancy rate hovering around 40% in recent months—and under 40% for some weeks of this summer. Philadelphia, like many U.S. cities, has gone full throttle on efforts to lure people back into downtown areas. But the combination of the office-worker exodus, taxes and crime has resulted in more empty office space on the market today than during the 2008 recession, theorize researchers, Philadelphia employees and real-estate professionals. Center City District, a business-improvement group aimed at keeping downtown Philadelphia safe and attractive, said its own data set shows office occupancy steadily rising to 57% as of June. The group uses data from street sensors and mobile-phone location pings to monitor foot-traffic in a stretch of downtown with the most office buildings, said Paul Levy, chief executive of Center City District.
