Toronto has faced an arduous road to recovery after pandemic lockdowns that turned the core into a ghost town, and while vacant storefronts and a glut of empty office space serve as reminders of that era, data shows that many sectors are finally back to normal even in the face of new economic challenges.

In its latest overview of the city's retail scene, commercial real estate company JLL is surprisingly cheerful despite the current recession, noting that retail rents have increased in recent months, and retail availability has finally dropped below 10 per cent for the first time in years.

Massive crowds at events show Toronto has moved on from two years of lockdownshttps://t.co/lVSZ7ky397 #Toronto

— blogTO (@blogTO) August 30, 2022

New leases of expansive spaces along King Street West, Queen Street West, and Yonge near Bloor, in particular, are promising, JLL notes, as is the fact that public transit ridership has bounced back to 74 per cent of pre-COVID levels, even while office occupancy is only at 52 per cent.

This 52 per cent also marks an improvement of 10 per cent between this past January and July, with people increasing their frequency in the office while holding on to the increased work-from-home flexibility that the pandemic spawned.

Still, high vacancy rates for office space have been cause for great concern among stakeholders, with companies like Shopify backing out of major leases and people noticing that things still feel pretty quiet around the financial district.

No quick recovery in sight for Toronto's dying downtown core 😁 https://t.co/XxPQrNAIuh #Toronto #RealEstate #Office

— blogTO (@blogTO) October 9, 2023

But retail and hospitality are another story, as even with the increased cost of basically everything, the report says that retail sales have kept pace with retail inflation, with the food-service industry specifically performing "exceptionally well, with provincial sales recently surpassing pre-pandemic levels."

The caveat to this is the increased costs of goods and labour have largely outpaced sales increases for restaurants, with about a third of them now operating at a loss from coast to coast.

Other data from recent months has painted quite a different picture for that sector than JLL is reporting, with OpenTable saying that restaurant sales have been below last year's numbers.