LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- In spite of some recent business additions to downtown Louisville many towers still have major vacancies.

According to our partners at Louisville Business First, a November report from CBRE shows more than 1.8 million square feet of vacant space inside towers within the Central Business District. That represents a vacancy rate of more than 40%, which is up from 35% a year ago.

But experts said numbers can be deceiving because they don't account for tenants planning to move out of a building but have yet to do so, like Humana.

Work-from-home was already on the rise in Louisville and nationally from 2010-19, according to Census data. About 5% of the workforce was home-based in 2019, up from about 3% a decade earlier. But then the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March 2020, forcing nearly everyone into that daily reality.

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