El Paso is located on the far western tip of Texas on the border of Mexico and New Mexico. El Paso is the 6th largest city in Texas, and the largest border city in the U.S. with a metropolitan statistical area totaling over 834,000 people. Drawing from more than 2.5 million people within a 50-mile radius makes El Paso the epicenter of bi-national commerce. This region represents one of the largest manufacturing sectors in North America. Its international ports of entry (The Bridge of Americas) is the world’s largest international border crossing metroplex with over 19 million crossings annually and accounts for over $72 billion in international trade. This flow of international goods and services has a significant role in the El Paso economy directly supporting the region’s manufacturing and transportation companies, and indirectly stimulating El Paso’s industrial, retail, hotel, and recreation industries.
Located in the heart of southwestern U.S., El Paso enjoys a dry, mild climate and a cost of living that is nearly 10% below the national average. El Paso has been ranked the #1 safest large city for four straight times in recent years. The City’s focus has been to create new employment opportunities and launched a quality of life initiative which led to taxpayers approving a $473 million quality of life initiative. This has started with the completion of a new AAA Major League Baseball stadium in the heart of Downtown along with plans for a new $170 million arena, and the ground breaking of a $93 million streetcar system. This has led to many new developments with three new hotels under construction, multifamily developments are being planned, and many new restaurants are moving in. Downtown revitalization is well underway!
El Paso’s bi-national and multicultural population has been nationally recognized as being one of the friendliest places to do business. The Sun Bowl, one of the City’s greatest traditions and one of the oldest college football bowl games in the country, has been known as the “most hospitable bowl in the country. El Paso has seen unpresented growth starting with the expansion of Ft. Bliss, which is the Army’s 2nd largest installation, covering over 1,700 square miles and larger than the state of Rhode Island. In 2013 the base completed a $4.1 billion expansion nearly tripling its size to 74,000 personnel. Ft. Bliss has an annual economic impact of over $4.8 billion. There are four major universities within a 50-mile radius of El Paso, a new four-year medical school, and nine school districts offering residents a wide range of educational offerings. El Paso’s voters recently approved $645 million in bonds for new schools and renovations of existing facilities. The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) is the 3rd largest campus in the University of Texas System and recently allocated over $250 million in new facilities. The Paul J. Foster School of Medicine, which is affiliated with Texas Tech University, has paved the path of the formation of the Medical Center of Americas (MCA) which is focused on becoming the leading biomedical research and health care providers in the U.S./Mexico region. The medical school brings a local impact of $1.3 billion annually and is expanding rapidly with employment in the healthcare sector surging by 33% in 2016. This is twice the growth rate over the past 10 years.
The future for El Paso has never been brighter. Since the year 2000, the City’s population has grown by 24% and its expected that the population will grow past 945,000 by 2025. The population is young and employable with the median age of 31 and over 80,000 people currently attending the local colleges. Unemployment in the region has fallen to 4.8%, below the national average for the first time in over a decade, with wages nearly 30% below the U.S. average. The community continues to invest in itself. Over $500 million of public and private investment has been made since 2006 not including nearly double that amount slated to be invested in the very near future. With a broad-based employment sector coupled with the unprecedented investments that the region has had in recent years, El Paso is no longer just a “safe bet” it’s now a “great bet”!
