OAKLAND — Those walking by the 17th Street parking garage on Friday morning might have noticed a lonely sandwich board out front that reads, “Welcome Back!”

The sign was intended to advertise exclusive parking discounts through this week for Oakland City Hall employees returning to the historic downtown building and surrounding offices, a planned end to an era of remote work that dated back to the COVID-19 pandemic’s outset.

But the Rotunda Garage’s limited-time rates probably had few takers in recent weeks.

Earlier this month, City Administrator Jestin Johnson told employees that the city’s shift to a minimum requirement of four in-person workdays a week had been postponed to June 2. It was previously supposed to take effect around the start of April.

The delay was the result of “productive dialogue,” Johnson wrote in a May 8 internal memo, between the city and its public-employee labor unions — namely, Oakland’s two largest, SEIU 1021 and IFPTE Local 21, which represent more than 2,200 health care and other professionals in Oakland.

Johnson had first informed city staff in late January about the end of the work-from-home era, weeks before Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered 100,000 state workers back to the office.Now, Oakland is putting off the grand homecoming, though it is not alone. San Francisco also moved a planned return-to-office to August after public labor leaders there negotiated the later date with new Mayor Daniel Lurie.

The drought of busy workplaces has extended more than five years since Bay Area health leaders shut down the local economy and ordered most people to work remotely in March 2020.

Widespread coronavirus fears have long since faded, but office vacancies in downtown Oakland are only climbing. They’re up to 26.5% in the first quarter of 2025, compared to 20.5% in the same period last year, according to data released by Colliers, a Bay Area commercial real estate agency.

Debates about the merits of returning to the office became a talking point during the recent election season, the idea receiving support from the campaign of Barbara Lee, who was sworn in last week as the city’s new mayor.

Beyond the political stakes, however, there is a downtown business community that has not seen the lunch hour bustle return to its pre-pandemic vibrancy, when thousands of public employees would be out and about.

“No foot traffic, no customers, no jobs, no money,” said Elaine Taing, who took over ownership from her parents of the downtown Rotisserie Deli and last year renamed it CravLings, a nod to her Chinese name.

Taing, who commutes to Oakland from Hayward, gestured around at the various city, state and federal offices in the area, lamenting the loss of what used to be a steady customer base. Her restaurant is next door to City Hall.

“It just feels more dangerous now,” she said. “People can do whatever they want when nobody’s watching. … If you’re at home making money, where is the rest of the economy going to find jobs?”

Several city departments are fully in person or nearly there, including Oakland police and fire, which never went remote to begin with, plus the city’s animal services. But swaths of municipal employees continue to work remotely more than one day a week.

Close to 90% of workers in the Planning and Building Department, 60% in the Department of Violence Prevention, 46% in the Human Services Department, 35% in the Department of Transportation and 25% in Public Works were telecommuting at least part of the week in early February, according to an internal city email obtained by this news organization.

Representatives of the city’s public-employee labor unions did not respond to multiple requests for information about the job conditions involved in remote versus in-person work.

Certain aspects of office life might naturally seem tiresome to reinstate, including dreaded commute times, extra carbon emissions from vehicles and long days spent navigating workplace relations instead of caring for family.

On the other hand, a quiet City Hall appears to be bottlenecking some resources for residents, including those seeking various permits required for construction or renovation projects.

Oakland has a one-stop permit center that handles most types of applications — for real estate planning, zoning reviews, building, transportation and fire prevention.

But the window to secure these documents is relatively narrow, with walk-in hours limited to 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Monday or a half-hour later on Wednesday; appointments only on Tuesday and Thursday. The office closed altogether on Friday.

The city’s chief building official, Lonell Butler, noted a lack of support among management for streamlining the city’s permitting processes in a May 13 resignation letter he sent to the city.

Butler described how other public agencies where he’s worked across a long career will take about 10 days to approve permits for someone looking to renovate their home. The process can sometimes take up to 18 weeks in Oakland, he said, and remote work is partially to blame.

“I mean, we’re public servants,” Butler said. “We should be there.”

The city does have an online permit center that processes about a quarter of all the city’s applications, multiple officials interviewed said.

But many aspects of Oakland’s economy are clearly rebounding. The city’s parking tax revenue has actually returned to levels seen before the pandemic, increasing last year by 11%, a recent budget document stated.

The local economy depends on the return of those willing to inject dollars into local businesses. But store owners said they empathize with workers who have become accustomed to a slower pace of life.

Hyat Falol, an Oakland resident and manager of Cafe Teatro in the City Hall plaza, recalled traveling two hours from Fairfield during her childhood so her father, who owns the business, could open up shop. It wasn’t easy.

“It has to do with making sure everyone can afford to live where they go to work,” Falol said. “Selfishly, I want to say ‘Get back to work.’ But that’s not always realistic.”

Staff writer George Avalos contributed to this report.