Young professionals take over South Bend area, luxury apartments built everywhere

Across the South Bend Area, apartments are popping up all over the place. But a lot of these new developments are expensive and luxurious: aimed at the young professionals who's population is increasing. 

Cara Grabowski oversees South Bend's Young Professionals Network, a group aimed at attracting and connecting people aged 21-39 in the area.  She says that during the past five years, their attendance has increased over 200%.  And a lot of these professionals are new to the area. 

"At every event I constantly meet people every time that say. 'Hey this is my first event, I just moved here.'" Grabowski says.

Companies are recruiting people to work in the increasingly diverse industries, such as technology, medicine, engineering, and more. Some of these firms attended the Renaissance District Job Fair on Thursday, in hopes of recruiting even more.

Piyas Bandyopadhyay is the Principal Consultant for his start-up, Kinetic Development.  He says he definitely wants to hire more young professionals, but that the community needs to reflect those changes. 

"The chicken has to be ready to lay the eggs. The chicken has to be first for those young professionals to stay here."

But developers are taking advantage of this growing demographic. 

Holly Nunemaker is the Director of Marketing for the Sterling Group, the property management team responsible for the River Rock Apartments in Mishawaka. 

This luxury apartment complex is right off of the St. Joseph River, where rent ranges from $1,200 - $2,800.

She agrees with this trend, and says there is a surge of more apartments being build because of the demand and movement of young and old professionals to the region.

Nunemaker says housing is a big draw.

"I definitely think where you live plays a big part," she says.

Grabowski sees it already.

"I personally know a lot of people who are looking into moving into those apartments," she says.  

She believes that this new target market will help the area's comeback even more. 

"I'm excited to see where it is going in the next 10 years," Grabowski says. 

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