WSJ Highlights EP Renaissance
By ABC-7 Reporter Martin Bartlett
EL PASO — The Wall Street Journal is pointing to El Paso’s Downtown Renaissance as model of a home-grown, high-dollar economic resurgence.
And El Paso’s only one of seven cities around the world listed, in the report which hit news stands Monday
While this is the kind of publicity that money just can’t buy, that doesn’t mean that is just fell in our lap, according to the reporter who wrote the story.
Dallas-based reporter Kris Hudson profiled El Paso’s re-birth in monday’s Journal; he said big name projects like the revitalization of the Mills Building, the Plaza Hotel and the International Hotel caught their eye, but when leaders of El Paso’s Regional Economic Ddevelopment Corporation went to Dallas to sell the Sun City, that sealed the deal.
“We talked about all the all the other projects that were going on in addition to Fort Bliss expansion, downtown renovation and the medical campus,” he said. “When you start to talk about the big movers involved in downtown revitalization… it becomes even more intriguing.”
Hudson said the infusion of big money from deep, local pockets is what makes El Paso newsworthy.
But small business owners like Raul Gonzalez are also helping turn up the flame on El Paso’s Downtown Renaissance.
“WhenI saw that it was serious now — that there was a big commitment — I said, you know, it can’t fail,” he said.
The former banker and El Paso-native packed up, left Houston, came home, and opened Ruli’s International Kitchen — a happening weekday lunch spot with young professionals on San Jacinto Plaza.
“It shows that there are people who believe in the city that really want to see something nice happen,” he said of the high-rise buildings under construction within view of the giant plate glass windows in his restaurant which front the Plaza.
“It’s really a breath of fresh air to see somebody go in with money — big money — rather than just say there is nothing to do in El Paso.”
Click here to read the entire Wall Street Journal article.
Click here to read a Newspaper Tree article about how El Paso got chosen as one of the profiled cities.
