The city has been tracking the vacancy rate on Commerce Drive for the last seven years and just recently the commercial street jumped into the 90th percentile for occupancy. 

Planning and Development Director Rob Kurtz said the trend in the city overall is that the vacancy rate — for retail and industrial — has declined.

Commerce Drive recently reached a 93 percent occupancy rate. 

"We're very happy about that," he said.

In September of 2010 the occupancy rate was nearly 82 percent. By November 2011 it had increased to 85 percent and in January 2012 the street was 88.5 percent occupied. 

While the percentage has increased to 93 as of now, some of the buildings on Commerce Drive are only partially occupied, said Kurtz. 

There are two buildings on the street that are completely vacant, two locations that have less than 50 percent of the building occupied and two more structures with between 75 and 90 percent occupied. 

The most recent company to move onto Commerce Drive is Struktol — which moved from Steels Corners Road. Record Publishing Co. is the most recent business to leave that street when it consolidated and moved to Kent. 

"We have a huge income tax base over on Commerce ... all those big private companies are what fuels our revenue stream for income taxes," said Mayor Sara Drew.