Downtown Edmonton hopes to be back in business with an anticipated end to working from home

Downtown businesses that rely on the downtown office crowd are looking forward to seeing Alberta's work-from-home mandate lifted on March 1.

The phased-in lifting of health restrictions, announced Tuesday by Premier Jason Kenney, started this week with the end to Alberta's vaccine passport system and many masking requirements for children and students.

If COVID-19 hospitalization numbers continue to dip, the mandatory work-from-home order will be among measures lifted when the next phase kicks in at the beginning of next month.

"I'm very excited," said  Amy Quon, who has owned and operated Chicken For Lunch in the Scotia Place food court for nearly 30 years.

"During these two years, we are very, very slow. Look at this food court. There is nobody here because nobody is working in the office," Quon said. 

She's hoping the removal of the mandate will see employees returning to the office — and customers returning to her food court stall.

"Usually the customers line up waiting for me," she said. "Right now I sit down and am waiting for the customer. Very, very bad business now."

Quon doesn't expect change to happen overnight. She believes employees will gradually return to downtown's office buildings, as happened last year after all public health measures were lifted in July.

The Downtown Business Association and other groups have been advocating for months for the work-from-home mandate to be lifted.

"It hasn't made a ton of sense from a public health perspective, and it's been extremely harmful for downtown businesses," said Puneeta McBryan, the association's executive director.

The association has surveyed close to 500 employees whose offices are located downtown but have been working from home. The results, expected next week, will provide a sense of employee returns to the office, which will then allow downtown businesses to make plans.

"We'll be able to make better decisions about how we activate downtown," she said. "All of our restaurants, retail shops and personal service businesses will be able to plan their staffing, stock and all that stuff much better. Because really, it's those office workers that kind of are holding all the cards right now."

Businesses are also sorting out the details.

Stantec, which has a tower located downtown, expects 50 per cent of its Alberta employees will be back to the office full-time, while the remainder will be a mix of office and home.