As per one of the new orders from President Donald Trump, remote work is ending for federal employees, who must return to the office full time. That could be a boon for downtown Denver, which hasn’t recaptured the office workers, visitors and companies it once had.
But the impact of such a move will be a challenge to measure as efforts are already underway to complete 16th Street Mall construction, recruit new retail, restaurant and corporate tenants, and steer tax dollars to the central business district. Many may already be back in their downtown offices, if only a few days a week.
“Government employees have long made up one of the largest shares of employment in downtown Denver, so the prospect of federal employees returning to office full time is meaningful for the downtown economy,” said Kourtny Garrett, president and CEO of Downtown Denver Partnership, in an email. “Government — whether local, state or federal — has an important leadership role to play across the board, including as it relates to return to office, so we’re also hopeful that this move could be catalytic in nature.”
No one knows for sure how many federal workers still have an office downtown, but there are many buildings that house regional offices, like the Region 8 office of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Wynkoop Street or the Federal Reserve Bank (and Denver Money Museum) on 16th Street. And of those, no one seems to know how many employees are working remotely. But the numbers for Denver go something like this:
- 29,400 — U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ November estimate that includes Lakewood and Aurora. Along with Denver, the three cities make up the well-used Metropolitan Statistical Area, a standard used by agencies like the U.S. Census Bureau.
- 7,421 — Count from the Office of Personnel Management, the federal agency’s HR department. This excludes U.S. Postal Service workers and some federal departments like the Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency.
- 17,170 is OPM’s count when adding Aurora and Lakewood to Denver’s total.
Carly West, vice president of government affairs for the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce, said that research from Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation estimates the number of federal workers in metro Denver is “over 13,500,” she said.
“It’s hard to have a sense of what the impact would be,” West said. “Obviously, those returns will have some positive economic impact. But we would expect that to be less of an impact than just new jobs coming into the region.”
She’s not expecting a sudden influx of thousands of workers filling local restaurants, coffee shops and parking garages. With 16th Street Mall construction wrapping up in early fall, plus commercial real estate stabilizing, there’s already momentum. Plus, she added, “There are obviously employees who are already in person.”
The downtown office market, where 16th Street Mall runs, has suffered from a couple years of companies leaving their leases since the pandemic. The downtown vacancy rate rose 2.8 percentage points in a year to 34.9% in the fourth-quarter 2024, according to commercial real estate broker CBRE.
Commercial brokers feel the office market is finally figuring out its future post pandemic, which changed how tenants used office space. Many downsized or moved away as office policies went remote and then hybrid, requiring employees to stop by the office a few days a week. Even employees for the city of Denver have been on a hybrid policy since April 2022 — and there’s no plans to change that yet, according to a spokesperson from the mayor’s office.
Some companies have announced expansions, like Ibotta, the mobile shopping-app developer that will take over three floors at 16 Market Square this fall. Ibotta’s sticking with its hybrid-work policy of three days in the office per week. But with room for 500 workers, the move is expected to make a difference.
More workers during the day means more customers for local restaurants and stores, West said. “The more vibrant it is, the more it attracts more people to be back downtown.”
Downtown buildings include federal court houses like the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals on Stout Street and the Alfred A. Arraj U.S. Courthouse on 19th Street. Those buildings have been back up and running for years.
But for some other federal agencies with district offices sporting a downtown address — including the U.S. Patent and Trademark, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the National Labor Relations Board, the U.S. Mint, and others — the impact is a pretty sensitive topic at the moment.
The patent office, which opened the Rocky Mountain Regional Office in Denver a decade ago, doesn’t necessarily have a staff needing to work in the same square feet every day. When Kathi Vidal visited Denver in August, the then-director of the U.S. patent office mentioned that there were 400 employees in the region. But most travel around the state to meet with inventors. Vidal resigned last month to make way for the new president’s pick.
Patent office officials had no comment for this story. A spokesman from the U.S. General Services Administration, which manages federal buildings, also did not respond.
Where are Colorado’s federal workers?
Just like Denver, the number of federal government workers changes with the source. According to BLS estimates, there were 57,200 federal government workers in Colorado in November.
OPM’s latest data, based on April 2024 paychecks, has a much lower number, at 44,537 civilian employees. That’s a 21% increase from 2017, based on an older OPM federal civilian employee count seven years ago. And again, OPM’s data doesn’t include U.S. Postal Service workers, certain agencies like the CIA and NSA, and some executive-branch employees.
OPM officials couldn’t say how many are remote but did share a general ballpark of remote or partly-remote federal workers. Only 7% are allowed to work remotely full time. At least 23% are on a regular hybrid work schedule. Here’s how the status of government workers line up:
- 40.15% — Not eligible for remote work
- 22.88% — Remote for three days or more, but not every day
- 14.15% — Can work remote only on a case-by-case basis, such as when there’s inclement weather, a doctor’s appointment or special work assignments
- 9.7% — No remote or telework data reported
- 7.16% — Can work remotely full time
- 3.86% — Unspecified
- 1.99% — Have a written agreement for regular telework, of one to two days per pay period
The largest portion of federal workers are in El Paso County, which counts 11,040 employees or 24.8% of the state’s federal workforce. Most are part of the local military bases, with more than 2,500 each at Peterson Space Force Base and Fort Carson. Approximately 2,654 work in Colorado Springs.
Denver has the second highest number of federal workers, followed by Jefferson County.
That’s due to Lakewood, where Denver Federal Center is located. The 670-acre complex of 90 buildings houses 28 federal agencies and 6,000 employees, according to a U.S. General Services Administration pamphlet (OPM had the number of federal workers in Lakewood at 5,862). The property was acquired by the U.S. government in 1941.
While the Union Boulevard corridor where the campus is located was pretty subdued at the start of the pandemic, activity seems back to normal, said Katie Faltys, Lakewood’s senior economic development specialist.
“I think we’ll see a slight increase of traffic in and around the Federal Center with the increase in work, but how I understand it is that currently, everyone is on a rolling schedule of part work from home, part in the office,” Faltys said. “I don’t think we’re going to see a huge increase in restaurants or other activities.”
Boulder County, the seventh largest hub for federal workers (at 1,804, according to OPM), has a certain specialty: federal labs. Boulder is home to highly specialized offices of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, including the Space Weather Prediction Center, National Centers for Environmental Information and Earth System Research Laboratory.
Scott Smullen, deputy director for NOAA Communications, didn’t say how many NOAA employees are in Boulder but he pointed out the agency’s hybrid work schedule from 2022. It encouraged a best practice “of up to 2 days of telework per week.”
“We cannot speculate on how the executive orders will be implemented at this time,” Smullen said in an email. “NOAA will remain dedicated to its mission, providing timely information, research, and resources that serve the American public and ensure our nation’s environmental and economic resilience.”