What my daily Diet Coke fix says about downtown Boston right now – The Boston Globe

These days, finding a convenience store is not so convenient in Boston’s Central Business District. I started to worry c-stores, newsstands, and variety shops might go the way of City Sports and taxi stands.

So I rang up Michael Nichols, who as president of the Downtown Boston Business Improvement District, faces the tough task of rejuvenating 34 COVID-stricken blocks spanning Downtown Crossing and much of the Financial District. He’s enthusiastic, and relatively new in the job. And he’ll need all the enthusiasm he can muster.

Consider the stats. Nichols counts 90 to 100 empty storefronts scattered throughout the BID area — three to four times as many as before COVID. That does not include the quieter stretch between Post Office Square and the Rose Kennedy Greenway, where there are many additional retail vacancies. There’s plenty of empty space upstairs, too. Real estate brokerage Colliers reports a record-high downtown office vacancy rate of 23 percent and rising.

Many downtown denizens have a favorite tailor, clothier or cobbler — with personalized service and a pay-me-back-whenever attitude. Those folks are struggling, if they haven’t packed up and left already. Many employers have shrunk their office footprints amid the lingering popularity of hybrid work. Three-plus years after the Great Exodus, most office towers remain about half-full on a given weekday (and much less on Fridays). The businesses that relied heavily on the daily ebb and flow of office workers suffer the most.

Unfortunately for soda addicts like me, this means fewer places to get a 20-ounce bottle of Atlanta’s finest. Nichols still counts 18 c-stores among the BID’s 34 blocks, including four chain drugstores. He says the number has dropped from at least 24 in 2019.

These vacancies vex business leaders — and not because it’s harder to find a midday soda or snack. They worry about how the decline in office workers contributes to the perception that downtown has become less safe than it was before the pandemic (city officials provided crime stats that show that’s not the case) and about the long-term economic and financial harm to the city if buildings become empty shells and their tax valuations fall. The dysfunctional T doesn’t help.

Weekly foot traffic in the BID is still down about a third from pre-pandemic levels. But Nichols qualifies this as evidence of a solid recovery — one driven by tourists as well as locals visiting restaurants, bars, and theaters. That said, he won’t be satisfied until pre-pandemic levels return.

How to get there?

One frequently discussed option: make downtown a 24/7 neighborhood. Live, work, play, and all that. But renovating offices for residential use isn’t easy. There’s a reason no downtown developer has publicly proposed such a renovation recently, despite the clear desire in City Hall. The size of a building’s floors needs to be relatively small, to meet window and plumbing requirements. A building should be on the older side, so it’s financially feasible to tear apart interiors. Architecture firm Gensler recently estimated that 12 percent of downtown Boston buildings could work for residences, while brokerage Avison Young estimated the number could be substantially higher. Regardless, no one seems to be biting yet — though Nichols just heard about one modest conversion that could be moving forward.

Nichols said he thinks public incentives will be necessary to make the economics work for these kinds of projects. Maybe the city can drop affordable housing requirements, he said, or provide financial support such as tax relief. City Hall has set aside significant federal relief funds for housing production, although none of it is earmarked for office conversions, and has both a downtown rezoning effort and an office conversion study underway.

Segun Idowu, Mayor Michelle Wu’s economic development chief, says everything is on the table right now. While City Council President Ed Flynn is pushing colleagues to set an example and return to fully in-person meetings, city officials know they can’t rely on commuters alone to revive downtown. The Wu administration this month is expected to announce the first winners in a new storefront revitalization grant program, known as SPACE, that drew more than 350 applicants seeking to occupy empty shops around the city. Expect awards of up to $200,000 for 25 to 30 businesses, Idowu said, with up to 10 of them in or around the downtown area.

Nichols has added economic development to the BID’s traditional roles of marketing and street-cleaning. This started with its “3rd Space” project, turning an empty storefront at 101 Arch St. into a temporary art gallery and event space. The experiment appeared to work: A paying tenant has signed a letter of intent to move in. So Nichols will try something similar at other properties, and is exploring a legal structure that could offer tax deductions to landlords who donate ground-floor spaces. Nichols has been busy recruiting — showing a day care provider around on Federal Street, or walking a salon owner through a space on Tremont. BID staff also prodded entrepreneurs to apply for SPACE funds to occupy downtown spots, and helped them through the process. And Nichols just got a vote of confidence last Wednesday when BID members voted unanimously to extend the special taxing district for another five years.

Nichols already sees encouraging signs: the restaurant row that emerged along Temple Place, the popular High Street Place food hall. Hospitality and nightclub groups, he said, are eyeing at least two prominent downtown vacancies as the Wu administration presses for a more vibrant “late night economy.”

The BID’s recruiting focuses on certain types of businesses: bookstores, nonprofit-run retailers, specialty grocers, art galleries and studios, locally owned clothing and coffee shops. Convenience stores aren’t on the list, nor are many other uses that cater to office commuters.

As I wander a few blocks further for my late-afternoon dose of caffeine, I might grumble a bit. But maybe this place became too reliant on the office crowd even before COVID hit. The new Downtown Boston, it turns out, will need to be something different from the old one.

Jon Chesto can be reached at jon.chesto@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @jonchesto.