Article on El Paso Times (12/31/2006) (Santa Fe, Fort Bliss: for sale, foreclosures, rentals)

[Six Foot Three]

I was reading the E.P.Times online (sun/12/31/2006) and a story in the buisiness section stood out ''2006 a year of economic starts for el paso'' and basically its stating all the wonderful things that happened this past year in E.P. You'd think E.P. was starting to boom after reading it. Just wondering for comments about the article and what people there think about this story....

later !

[Muhnay]

Can you link the article? So I may comment on it.

From a personal perspective, Plastic plants leaving, Farah gone, Levi's gone, Stone washing companies gone, Hoover, moved to Juarez, and many other companies leaving El Paso for greener pastures, I would say the article from your POV is a bunch of smoke being blown up our collective buttocks.

Drive down any street in El Paso, bet there is at least 2 houses for sale on it.

North Park mall is empty, and should be torn down. Business closing all over the place.. I dont see how it can be booming here.

[Six Foot Three]

Originally Posted by Muhnay

Can you link the article? So I may comment on it.

elpasotimes.com/business
3rd article down...

[Muhnay]

I sorta Skimmed it.. I noticed they are also including some businesses in Juarez as part of their numbers. Also Fort Bliss is the main reason for any of it. I noticed they didn't show the jobs lost. But they say a picture is worth a 1000 words.. and if you look at the line of people looking for work in the picture they have with the story, that pretty much says it all dont you think? Oh and that company requires you to speak English and Spanish to be hired.

If it is hard to find work now, just think what it will be like when 27000 military familes arrive on the city. And if you think the roads are hard to travel now east to west, then wait till those 40K military are here. El Paso is gonna break under the strain.

[elpasojeff]

When Bob Cook says "it is one of the best years we've had" and our unemployment rate is still the highest in the state; that should give you a clue. As I have mentioned in previous posts; El Paso does not have the leadership
or skilled workforce.

When one looks at the "starts" ADP was a terrific gain for the city as was the expansion of Fort Bliss. The challenge is that it is going to take hundreds of millions of infrastructure (e.g. schools) to educate the children of all these soldiers. One military mom did not have the money to buy school uniforms; a local businessman picked up the tab.

The new hospital is being build by Tenet Healthcare; this is the same Tenet Healthcare which paid $900 million to resolve allegations of overcharging the Federal government

One of the reasons home prices are increasing is that people in California are hoping on Southwest Airlines flying out and buying homes as rental properties. Just watch the foreclosures in 2007 as many of these "Rentals" owned by Californians are vacant others are "alligators" where the rent does not come anywhere near the mortgage payment and taxes.

Lorraine Wardy is the new Chairwoman of the Hispanic Chamber. Lorraine is in a word "brilliant". She is an idea person. Most of the job creation in El Paso is small business. When you combine the skills of Cindy Davidson at the Hispanic Chamber with the ideas of Lorraine Wardy... I would bet that Wardy and Davidson do more for real economic development and job creation than the City of El Paso.

The downtown redevelopment in my opinion is a disaster waiting to happen. I pray that our city leaders don't invest hundreds of thousands in legal fees to take away the property of successful downtown businesses. For those of you who are not aware; our City is planning to "redevelop" 188 acres of downtown including using eminent domain to take property from small businesses and transfer it to developers. I could see the matter taking years
and ending up before the Supreme Court.

The article did not mention the new Outlet Mall in Canutillo. It will be interesting to see if it survives. Similar ventures in Casa Grande Arizona (between Tucson and Phoenix); and the Outlet Mall between Albuqerque and
Santa Fe went bankrupt... but after all we have all the traffic between Las Cruces and El Paso... Hmmm obviously the bankers know something the City Data members don't know

So I guess El Paso made some progress.