Philadelphia’s Center City district head condemns Back-to-Work Barometer

New York City landlords aren’t the only ones who are fed up with Kastle Systems oft-cited Back-to-Work Barometer, which claims to tally physical office occupancy.

Paul R. Levy, president/CEO of Philadelphia’s Center City business improvement district, raged over a recent Wall Street Journal story which called downtown Philly “one of the emptiest office districts in America.”

The story cited Kastle’s finding that Philadelphia office occupancy was only 40% of pre-pandemic levels. (The most recent numbers for the week ending Aug. 16 was a depressing 38.9%.)

Among other gripes, Levy claimed that Kastle counts card swipes at only two buildings in Philly’s 42 million square-foot office market.

Of the city’s “primary” office towers, “none use Kastle Systems,” Levy said.

As in New York, Kastle declined to say exactly what properties it monitors.

But Levy echoed what we’ve reported more than once about Kastle’s New York “metro” data, which includes buildings far from the Big Apple but only one owned of the city’s 10 largest commercial landlords.

A survey by Realty Check found that Vornado, SL Green, Boston Properties, Brookfield, Tishman Speyer and Related, among other giants, aren’t part of the Kastle data.

In other words, Kastle omits the buildings that have the most employees at their desks due to their higher quality and concentration of financial and law-firm tenants.

Yet some lazy media reports continue to cite Kastle’s discredited, incomplete and inaccurate numbers as gospel.