Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership hopes NFL Draft momentum bolsters retail market

The 2026 NFL Draft sparked a flurry of activity in Pittsburgh, as art installations spruced up empty storefronts, short-term pop-up businesses filled Downtown spaces and crews cleaned litter and scrubbed graffiti so the city would look its best.

Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership President Jeremy Waldrup on Tuesday said he hopes to build off that energy to bolster the Golden Triangle’s retail market.

“Our goal now is to continue this effort and keep this positive momentum and traction, keep it moving forward,” Waldrup said during a virtual quarterly update on the state of Downtown.

In the build-up to the draft — which was hosted in Pittsburgh’s North Shore and Downtown in late April — the partnership helped launch over 100 projects aimed to make the area more vibrant. That includes pop-up retailers, art installations and streetscape improvements.

“We’re not doing a victory lap here though,” Waldrup said. “This is just the beginning.”

Cate Irvin, the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership’s senior director of economic development, said the vacancy rate for Downtown retail spaces now is around 18.6%. That figure does not include redevelopment projects now underway.

For comparison, Philadelphia Center City’s retail occupancy is around 84.2%, leaving nearly 16% of spaces empty.

Many of Downtown’s vacant storefronts aren’t entirely empty. About 83% have some sort of activation, like short-term pop-up vendors or art displays in the windows, Irvin said.

Though the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership wants to continue filling the roughly 271,000 square feet of vacant storefronts Downtown, they also offered an optimistic assessment of how the numbers have trended since the covid-19 pandemic upended downtown areas throughout the nation.

From 2019 through 2022, Downtown saw more businesses close than open. That trend started to reverse in 2023, when Downtown saw 11 more businesses open than shutter.

So far this year, the area has seen a net positive of 17 businesses, according to Irvin.

“Downtown is climbing out of very deep losses from covid,” she said.