New Demographic Drives Luxury Apartment Development

A new kind of demographic is driving an apartment building boom in Baltimore, according to The Baltimore Business Journal.

The newspaper reports that young professionals, who prefer amenities and public transportation instead of car payments and a mortgage, are driving the two-year growth in luxury apartment development in the city.

That type of development can be found in many of the city’s most stable neighborhoods, and has been picking up speed in part because credit is still tight as the economy continues its slow recovery from the 2008 recession.

The most recent and controversial example is the proposed Harbor Point development.

But the Hampden community in North Baltimore is arguably the epicenter of the trend.

In the past few years Tera Nova Ventures has turned Mill No. 1 along the Jones Falls into a mixed-use development, Seawall Development also renovated Union Mill into higher end apartments and Hekemian & Co. recently broke ground on its plan to build nearly 400 apartments as part of a renovation of The Rotunda.     

Has the recession changed the Millennial generation’s "American Dream" from a white picket fence and a car to an apartment with a Starbucks nearby? Share your thoughts in the comments.