"You only have to look a little ways to see there's a lot of work to be done on the second floors," Soneson said.

Soneson said the number does indicate the progress made from just two years ago when Main Street had about eight or nine vacancies. Most vacancies were clustered on or around the 400-block of Main Street where My Verona, 419 Main St., and Tony's La Pizzeria, 407 Main St., opened.

A similar comparison for occupancy in Waterloo would be difficult to make. Measuring street-level occupancy along Fourth Street may be similar but would dismiss thousands of square feet of occupied space in the upper levels of the city's larger downtown buildings.

Main Street Waterloo volunteers are doing an audit of the downtown space.

"The long-term goal is to have a good picture of what we have and identify possible uses," said Jeff Kurtz, executive director of Main Street Waterloo. Kurtz said he doesn't have statistics on occupancy percentage for the same reasons Main Street Iowa doesn't track the statistic.

"Looking at percentages and all that, I could drive myself crazy," he said.