Who Are These ‘Young Professionals’?

Did you see this story in the El Paso Times?

The city is seeking proposals for an urban mixed-use, high-rise development that will be located in the parking lot across the street from City Hall, officials announced Wednesday.

. . .

Gonzalez said the city is envisioning enclosed above-ground parking with a combination of residential and retail use, a hotel project, or some similar combination with a high density urban format that is also architecturally significant and unique.

If it’s apartments, they’ll no doubt target that elusive demographic we here in El Paso fondly call Young Professionals, like the other proposed apartments downtown.

Whenever a marketing giant, like P&G or Philip Morris, launches a new product, they ask, Where will the new customers come from?

It’s because they don’t want to cannibalize their own customers. P&G, for instance, doesn’t want to launch a new laundry soap that competes with Tide.

So I wonder: Who are these young professionals that will move into all those new apartments downtown? Where do they work? What do they do? Where do they live now?

It’s not like building military housing, where your tenants are guaranteed by federal fiat.

Isn’t this the same demographic targeted by Monticello (and a hundred other apartment complexes in the city)?

Aren’t all those prospective tenants tied to leases? Won’t their current landlords fight to keep them, with lower rents, or more amenities?

Have you ever moved? People do so reluctantly. It’s not, generally, a pleasant experience.

I’m sure that the people making these decisions have considered all that. (Ha!) I just wish I knew what they were thinking.