NY Times: Millennials driving apartment boom in Wilmington
Wilmington is becoming quite the hot spot for young professionals.
Wilmington is becoming quite the hot spot for young professionals.
In Delaware's largest city, about 30 miles south on I-95 from Philadelphia, the downtown is expanding with several hundred apartments on the way.
These new apartments, profiled in a New York Times article this week, are aimed at millennials who are "driving increased demand for city-center living, car-free commutes and transit oriented development in cities around the country," the article states.
To build these residential units, developers are taking vacant or underused buildings and either demolishing or renovating them.
According to the article, 380 units along Market Street, Wilmington's main street, or within a block of it, are planned. The $91 million project will be completed between June 2015 and August 2016.
Some of the buildings that will be converted include a former department store building at 627 North Market, a 1930s building that served as the Wilmington Savings Fund Society, and a razed parking garage.
All of these units will be for rent and within walking distance to the train station.
As noted in the article, there are still some safety concerns for the city's 71,000 residents, where more than 1,100 violent crimes were reported in 2013. The poverty rate is 23.9 percent – more than twice the average in Delaware.
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