Opportunity Zones Podcast

What are students learning in the nation's first LLM-level tax course on Opportunity Zones? Joseph "Jay" Darby is a partner in Sullivan & Worcester's tax group in Boston and has been a member of the adjunct faculty at Boston University School of Law since 2003. This semester, he is teaching an LLM course at BU Law titled, "No Gain No Pain? Opportunity Zones, Like Kind Exchanges and QSBS Strategies." Show notes and transcript on OpportunityDb.com

How does impact investing pioneer Jim Sorenson invest for impact in Opportunity Zones? Can Catalyst Opportunity Funds serve as both a counterexample to the wave of negative OZ publicity and a model for OZ fund investing? Impact investing pioneer Jim Sorenson and tech entrepreneur Patrick McKenna are co-founders of Catalyst. Jim is also founder of the Sorenson Impact Foundation, and funding partner at the University of Utah's Sorenson Impact Center. Show notes and transcript at OpportunityDb.com

Why might indoor vertical farming be ideally suited for Opportunity Zones? Zale Tabakman is founder and president of Baltimore-based Local Grown Salads, an indoor vertical farming company that has its own Opportunity Zone fund. Show notes and transcript on OpportunityDb.com

What are the five most impactful changes in the final IRS regulations on Opportunity Zones? And what’s the true story behind the Opportunity Zone designation in Storey County, NV? Daniel Kowalski is counselor to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and led the Treasury Department’s efforts in issuing regulations on Qualified Opportunity Funds. Show notes and transcript on OpportunityDb.com

What types of foreign investors may be ideal candidates for Opportunity Zone investing? And is there an opportunity for OZ fund sponsors to raise capital overseas? Stephen Christiano is an associate tax director of Frank Hirth's business tax group, specializing in U.S. business taxation and Opportunity Zones. Show notes and transcript on OpportunityDb.com

What is a Community Development Financial Institution, or CDFI? And how can Opportunity Zone fund sponsors, real estate developers, and QOZB business owners leverage their local CDFIs as a capital raising resource? Ruben Alonso is president of AltCap, a CDFI headquartered in Kansas City. Emily Lecuyer is managing director of Equity Squared, a subsidiary of AltCap. Show notes and transcript on OpportunityDb.com

Final regulations on Opportunity Zones have been issued by the IRS. What are the most meaningful changes and additions to be aware of? Tony Nitti is an Aspen-based real estate tax law expert, CPA, and tax services partner at RubinBrown. He serves on the editorial advisory board for The Tax Adviser. He’s also a regular contributor at Forbes.com, where his latest article breaks down Opportunity Zones law and regulations. Show notes and transcript on OpportunityDb.com

Does the climate change mitigation industry pose a huge OZ business opportunity? Jack Sullivan is founder and CEO of RedCarbon, a Qualified Opportunity Zone Business that focuses on carbon sequestration technologies and processes. Transcript and show notes at OpportunityDb.com

How did Origin Investments line up over $100 million for their Opportunity Zone fund in less than 24 hours? And what are some of the biggest challenges and complexities of managing an OZ fund? Michael Episcope is co-founder and principal of Origin Investments, a private equity real estate firm founded in 2007. Show notes and transcript at OpportunityDb.com

Are Opportunity Zone funds living up to the spirit and intent of the initiative? And how should social impact reporting be conducted? Greg Genovese is president of Sound West Realty Capital, a real estate development group based in the Seattle area. Steve Sego is president of the Waterman Group, a community redevelopment, investment, and mitigation company. Show notes and transcript on OpportunityDb.com

How can different real estate tax credits (New Markets, Low Income Housing, Renewable Energy, and Historic) be paired with the Opportunity Zones tax incentive? This is Part 2 of my two-part conversation with Michael Novogradac. Michael Novogradac is managing partner of Novogradac, a top 50 accounting firm and thought leader in the Opportunity Zone industry. Show notes and transcript on OpportunityDb.com

Are Opportunity Zone funds having success raising enough capital? Will capital raising reach federal government estimates? Find out why one prominent tax accountant thinks so. This is Part 1 of my two-part conversation with Michael Novogradac. Michael Novogradac is managing partner of Novogradac, a top 50 accounting firm and thought leader in the Opportunity Zone industry. Show notes and transcript on OpportunityDb.com

What are some of the biggest misconceptions and inconsistencies surrounding the Opportunity Zone tax incentive? Bob Richardson is managing partner of Blue Cardinal Capital, a real estate private equity firm with Opportunity Zone projects in upstate New York. Show notes and transcript at OpportunityDb.com

Can an Opportunity Zone marketplace connect communities, OZ project sponsors, and investors to advance capital deployment and community impact? Peter Truog is founder of The Opportunity Exchange — a marketplace that connects impactful Opportunity Zone projects to capital sources. Also joining today’s podcast episode from The Opportunity Exchange are Leo Peña and Ayat Amin. Show notes and transcript on OpportunityDb.com

For business owners, what are some tips for approaching investors and raising Opportunity Zone capital? Len Mills is CEO of Verte OZ, a venture capital Opportunity Zone fund launched in September 2019 that invests in high-growth disruptive businesses. Show notes and transcript at OpportunityDb.com

Are you considering starting your own Qualified Opportunity Zone Business or converting an existing business into a QOZB? Or perhaps you need a QOZB for your Qualified Opportunity Fund? This episode is for you. What are the most important considerations when structuring your entity, and what are some best practices for regulatory compliance? Opportunity Zones Podcast host Jimmy Atkinson and OZ Consultants CEO Ashley Tison have teamed up to create OZ Pros -- Qualified Opportunity Fund and Qualified Opportunity Zone Business entity formation made easy. Transcript and show notes on OpportunityDb.com

How can you form your own Opportunity Zone fund? What are the most important considerations when structuring your entity, and what are some best practices for regulatory compliance? Opportunity Zones Podcast host Jimmy Atkinson and OZ Consultants CEO Ashley Tison have teamed up to create OZ Pros, a document generation tool for quick and easy OZ fund and OZ business formation. Show notes and transcript on OpportunityDb.com

Philanthropic capital will be crucial to achieving large-scale success in Opportunity Zones nationwide. So why has the philanthropic community's response been tepid thus far? John Lettieri is co-founder, president, and CEO of the Economic Innovation Group (EIG), a Washington DC-based policy group that helped create the Opportunity Zone tax policy. Show notes and transcript at OpportunityDb.com

How can Opportunity Zones ignite a place-based economic development revolution in one of the nation's poorest states? Alex Flachsbart is president and CEO of Opportunity Alabama, the nation's first nonprofit organization to create a marketplace for Opportunity Zone investment in a particular state. Show notes and transcript at OpportunityDb.com

It's been nearly six months since the IRS issued its second tranche of regulatory guidance on Qualified Opportunity Funds. How are business Opportunity Zone funds proceeding? Brian Phillips is managing partner of The Pearl Fund, the first Opportunity Zone fund to focus exclusively on business, using a venture capital model. Show notes and transcript on OpportunityDb.com

Erie, Pennsylvania is home to the nation's poorest ZIP code, and the nation's first organization dedicated to promoting a municipality's Opportunity Zones. Erie Downtown Development Corporation is led by CEO John Persinger and VP for finance and development Matt Wachter. Show notes and transcript on OpportunityDb.com

You've got Opportunity Zone questions. We've got Opportunity Zone answers. This is the inaugural edition of Opportunity Zones Podcast Listener Questions. Today's listener questions deal with options for existing Opportunity Zone property owners, incentives for Opportunity Zone businesses, and more. If you'd like to submit your own question or comment, leave a voicemail on the Opportunity Zones Podcast hotline. -- call (682) 800-1505. Show notes and transcript on OpportunityDb.com

What are some best practices for packaging an Opportunity Zone real estate deal and raising capital from investors? What are some examples of good deals and bad deals? Gabriel Fernandez is a real estate investment manager in Brooklyn, NY. Show notes and transcript on OpportunityDb.com

Is there a big problem with the Opportunity Zones program? Thomas Morgan is a real estate developer, broker, and investor who specializes in impact investing and 1031 exchange strategies. On today's episode, we discuss the recent New York Times article and the challenges of raising Opportunity Zone capital for projects in blighted locations. Show notes and transcript on OpportunityDb.com

Is the development of owner occupied housing on a massive scale achievable in blighted Opportunity Zone neighborhoods? First, you have to shock the system. Daniel Edwards and Ebony Edwards are founders of Kansas City-based Opportunity Zone development firm NeighborBuilt. Show notes and transcript on OpportunityDb.com

How can real estate and a unique entertainment product combine into a Qualified Opportunity Zone Business to deliver long-lasting social impact and job creation? Todd Perlmutter is CEO of Hotbed Entertainment Group. He previously spent 19 years at Blue Man Group as senior music director. Seth Dunlap is HEG's real estate and portfolio manager. Show notes and transcript on OpportunityDb

How can agribusiness capitalize on the Opportunity Zones program? Chris Rawley is founder and CEO of Fort Worth, TX-based Harvest Returns, an investment firm that facilitates capital raises for small- to medium-sized farmers. They launched the Sustainable Agriculture Opportunity Zone Fund earlier this summer. Show notes and transcript on OpportunityDb.com

Can Opportunity Zones be leveraged for biorefinery development and renewable fuel production? Nick Andrews is founder and CEO of Scottsdale, AZ-based USA BioEnergy, a multi-disciplinary company with experience in real estate development and renewable diesel biofuel production. Transcript and show notes at OpportunityDb.com

What are some of the most important tax accounting considerations when forming an Opportunity Zone Fund? Valerie Grunduski is a real estate tax accounting specialist and leads Plante Moran's Opportunity Zones practice. Show notes and transcript on OpportunityDb.com

What are the different layers of fees that Opportunity Zone investors should be aware of? And how much can investors expect to pay in fees to Qualified Opportunity Funds? Jonathan Miller is president and CEO of Parsonex Enterprises, a financial services firm, SEC registered investment adviser, and advisory group and asset manager that manages alternative assets in real estate, including in Opportunity Zones. Show notes and transcript on OpportunityDb.com

Much of rural America has been left behind in the economic recovery that has transpired since the Great Recession. Can Opportunity Zone investing reverse that trend? The Emerald Coast Opportunity Zone in northwest Washington state is a unique group of rural municipalities and tribal nations that has collaborated on producing a portfolio of rural Opportunity Zone projects with scale. What have been some of their biggest challenges so far? Show notes and transcript at OpportunityDb.com

Can Opportunity Zones address the nation's housing crisis? Taylor Lembi is founder and CEO at San Francisco-based real estate developer M31 Capital. Their Morpheus 1 Qualified Opportunity Zone Fund, launched earlier this year, invests in multi-family housing redevelopments in the Bay Area. Show notes and transcript at OpportunityDb.com

Are colleges and universities an untapped resource for Opportunity Zone development? Plus, what can we expect to learn from the census tract level sales transaction data that the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth is releasing later this month? Anu Varadharajan is a tax professor at Tulane University. Dr. Michelle Thompson is a planning and urban studies professor at the University of New Orleans and data fellow at the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth. Show notes and transcript at OpportunityDb.com

On Tuesday, July 9, the IRS held a public hearing on Qualified Opportunity Funds. Who spoke at the hearing and what are some of the biggest issues that the IRS needs to clarify? Full recap available at OpportunityDb.com

Full audio recording of the July 9 IRS public hearing on proposed regulations: "Investing in Qualified Opportunity Funds" [REG-120186-18]. Recorded live on site at the IRS New Carrollton Federal Building Auditorium on July 9, 2019, beginning at 10:00 a.m. EDT. Timestamps and recap at OpportunityDb.com/hearing

What are some strategies for maximizing Opportunity Zone investment returns? What should investors be aware of and what pitfalls should they avoid? Kevin Shields is founder, chairman, and CEO of Griffin Capital, an alternative investment firm with over $17 billion in assets under management. Show notes and transcript on OpportunityDb.com

It's been one year since Virtua Partners launched the very first Qualified Opportunity Fund. Since then, they have raised $100 million, roughly half of which has already been deployed; they've broken ground on numerous projects, and have a pipeline of about 100 more. Quinn Palomino is principal at Virtua Partners, a global private equity firm that specializes in commercial real estate, and manager of four Opportunity Zone funds. Show notes and transcript on OpportunityDb.com

Should Qualified Opportunity Funds best practices include third-party administration? And what are some Opportunity Zone trends being noticed by the industry's largest service provider? Reid Thomas is executive vice president and general manager of NES Financial, a Silicon Valley-based fintech company that provides a purpose-built administration solution for Qualified Opportunity Funds. Show notes and transcript on OpportunityDb.com

What is the biggest problem in the Opportunity Zone space today? And why is there pushback from potential investors with capital gains? Justin Wolk is a capital advisor for StackSource, a New York City-based real estate technology company that connects commercial real estate developers with lenders. Show notes and transcript on OpportunityDb.com

What are some of the most important legal considerations when forming an Opportunity Zone Fund? What are some of the pros and cons of corporation, partnership, REIT, and synthetic fund structures? Jessica Millett is partner, chair, and "Wizard of OZ" of the tax practice group at Duval & Stachenfeld, a real estate law firm headquartered in New York City. Show notes and transcript on OpportunityDb.com

The second tranche of regulations that were published two months ago clarified many questions regarding opportunity zone businesses. What are some strategies for operating business investment that OZ funds should consider? M&A attorney Ashley Tison is founder and CEO of the Charlotte, NC-based Ōz group of companies (pronounced OHz). Ōz is an opportunity zone consulting group and manager of a qualified opportunity fund that invests in operating business. Show notes and transcript on OpportunityDb.com

Why does a trade association for Qualified Opportunity Funds want more data collection and reporting? And could the Opportunity Zone program be renewed at some point in the future? Senator Tim Scott's former tax adviser, Shay Hawkins is founder and president of the Opportunity Funds Association (OFA) -- a Washington, DC-based advocacy, education, and communications group for the Qualified Opportunity Fund industry. Show notes and transcript on OpportunityDb.com

How can incubating local businesses in shipping containers achieve Opportunity Zone community activation and gentrification without displacement? Sasha Favelukis is founder of CoPlace, a San Diego-based investment and advisory firm that specializes in community activation. Show notes and transcript on OpportunityDb.com

Will office real estate be the driver for much of the economic growth across the nation's Opportunity Zones? Clint Myers is partner at Revolution's Rise of the Rest, a seed fund that invests in startups located outside of locations that traditionally receive startup funding -- an approach that has a lot of overlap with the Opportunity Zones policy. Show notes and transcript on OpportunityDb.com

Are Opportunity Zone Funds actually raising any money yet? Chris Loeffler is co-founder and CEO of Caliber, an Arizona-based alternatives investment management firm that was among the first to launch a Qualified Opportunity Fund last year, a fund which has already raised $40 million, is actively deploying capital to Opportunity Zones, and is expected to hit their $500 million raise target within two years. Show notes and transcript on OpportunityDb.com

How can the resources of the Federal government be leveraged to help deliver generational impact to Opportunity Zone communities? Scott Turner is the newly appointed executive director of the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council -- a group of cabinet members and White House officials charged with coordinating Federal agency efforts to magnify the impact of investments in Opportunity Zones. Show notes and transcript at OpportunityDb.com

How was the Opportunity Zones initiative created in the first place? And why is this program so radically different from previous place-based policies? John Lettieri is co-founder and president of the Economic Innovation Group, a Washington, DC-based public policy organization that created the Opportunity Zones legislation and continues to inform the rulemaking process. Show notes and transcript on OpportunityDb.com

How can retail investors access alternative investments typically reserved for institutional investors? And where do Opportunity Zones fit into the universe of portfolio alternatives? Washington, DC-based Tony Chereso is president and CEO of the Institute for Portfolio Alternatives, a trade group tasked with advocating for awareness of portfolio diversifying investments (PDIs). Show notes and transcript on OpportunityDb.com

Part 2 of 2 with Lennox Jackson: Which neighborhoods on Chicago’s West and South Sides have the greatest levels of redevelopment need? Chicago is home to 133 opportunity zones. But which neighborhoods on Chicago’s West and South Sides have the greatest levels of redevelopment need? And what are some of the challenges of acquiring capital for building in low-income communities? Lennox Jackson is founder and CEO of Urban Equities, a Chicago-based real estate developer and advisor that specializes in residential, retail, and commercial projects. Note: this is Part 2 of my conversation with Lennox. If you missed it, go to the previous episode for Part 1, where we discuss why gentrification may be a good thing. Show notes and transcript on OpportunityDb.com

Part 1 of 2 with Lennox Jackson: Is Opportunity Zone gentrification a good thing? And why might affordable rate housing not be the best solution in certain low-income neighborhoods? Lennox Jackson is founder and CEO of Urban Equities, a Chicago-based real estate developer and advisor that specializes in residential, retail, and commercial projects. Note: this is Part 1 of my conversation with Lennox. Listen to the next episode for Part 2, where we discuss Chicago's Opportunity Zone neighborhoods. Show notes and transcript on OpportunityDb.com