Experts Say Opportunity Zones’ Real Estate Benefits Have Overshadowed Potential Impact On Businesses

Sills Cummis’ Ted Zangari participated in the ROI-NJ “Thought Leadership Series Event –Targeting Opportunity Zones” on May 15 at the Green Brook Country Club, North Caldwell, New Jersey.

As seen in this article, “The panelists said so much of the initial interest in the program was about real estate that the fact that it could help existing businesses — in fact, that was the main impetus for setting it up — was lost.”

Ted Zangari, Member and chair of the Firm’s Real Estate Department, explained that infrastructure can leverage the program as well.

“‘With public infrastructure, I think the sky is the limit,’ he said. ‘It could solve a lot of infrastructure problems where we have the money to do the long-term capital investment work that we need to be doing: water, sewers, roads, bridges, tunnels.’

“‘That’s the piece, frustratingly, that’s getting lost in this,’ he said. ‘The media is focused on this as a real estate play, but Sen. Tim Scott really envisioned this because he had tumbleweed towns in South Carolina that had lost all their downtown merchants.’

“‘(He’ll say) this was really supposed to be aimed at small businesses. That’s the story that’s yet to be told. There’s a lot of potential here.’”