To attract investors to an opportunity zone, area economic developers should create investment prospectuses for the zones in their community.
The advice comes from Bruce Katz, co-author of The New Localism, who’s helped create more than 40 investment prospectuses for opportunity zones across the country. With more than 8,700 identified opportunity zones, Katz says it’s increasingly important for local governments to market zones and the assets located within them.
“The investment prospectus has become a means for organizing disparate stakeholders in cities around a common purpose,” Katz said during a panel Tuesday afternoon at the Statewide Economic Development Summit hosted by BRAC. “The first audience for (opportunity zones) is not the foreign fund; it’s going to be local. You’re re-educating people about your state, showing the possibility for investment.”
An effective prospectus, he says, can go “the last mile” by identifying potential projects that are both investor-ready and community-enhancing. For example, one prospectus Katz helped develop included four “real deal” projects and the cost needed to redevelop within the opportunity zone.
“Investors, whether local or outside, want to see the deal,” he says, adding the prospectus should move beyond pitching affordable housing projects to include projects that would help grow locally owned businesses. Such a project, Katz says, can help equip area residents in the opportunity zone with skills and opportunity to build wealth.
“The prospectus has become a vehicle for mobilizing public, private and civic powers and resources,” he says, “in ways that can leverage the full economic and social impact of opportunity zones.”
