A quarter of all post-pandemic apartments constructed in Phoenix was concentrated downtown. Impressively, this resulted in more than 5,200 new units, positioning the city center as the 21st fastest growing downtown nationwide. 

Our Downtown Construction Report looks at the 50 largest U.S. cities to highlight those betting big on the revival of their urban cores, whether through new apartment development, adaptive reuse, or both. 

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Here are the highlights: 

  • Phoenix built 5,201 downtown apartments after the pandemic in zip codes 85003, 85004, 85006, 85007, accounting for 23.7% of all new units in the city.  
     
  • This indicates a similar distribution of construction activity in the city as in the previous decade, when 23.1% of all new rentals were in the downtown area. Notably, adaptive reuse downtown ceased after 2020.  
  • Apartment construction in downtown Phoenix grew exponentially at the start of the millennium. The number of completed apartments saw a twelvefold increase compared to the 1990s, going from 234 units to a whopping 2,820 units, which then doubled in the 2010s to 4,284 units.  
  • Developers building most apartments outside the city center did so in response to the influx of new residents. The Phoenix metro area surpassed 5 million inhabitants after the pandemic. In Mesa, population growth spurred an increase in downtown apartment construction. This sought-after suburb accelerated development, with more than half of all new units (1,556 apartments) built in its downtown after 2020. 
  • Washington, D.C., is the leader in downtown apartment construction: Nearly 23,000 new units have been built here since 2020, accounting for 80% of citywide construction. Chicago follows with close to 14,000 units, or a 63% share of all units, while Denvercompletes the podium with 13,149 units, representing almost half of all construction. 
     
  • Cities like Atlanta; Charlotte, NC; Miami; and Seattle come next in the ranking. Each city brought online more than 10,000 downtown apartments, accounting for roughly one-third of all new apartments.  
     
  • Which cities put the pedal to the metal in downtown development? San Jose, CA, saw its share of downtown apartments rise from 35.5% in the last decade to 63.8% after 2020. Other cities like Tulsa, OK, and Virginia Beach, VA, are also seeing a growing focus on revitalizing core areas.  
      
  • Here are the cities that focus heavily on bringing housing to their core districts: Long Beach, CA; Milwaukee; Detroit; and San Francisco each have 75% or more of their newly built apartments located downtown. In fact, 13 out of the 50 cities analyzed had half or more of their apartments built downtown. 

Check out the national numbers and the evolution of downtown construction in the nation’s largest cities since 1990 in our full repor.