Mark Olshaker Author Archives

The interest, curiosity and enthusiasm surrounding Opportunity Zones has been dramatic since the program was announced as part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, and forums bringing potential players together have proliferated around the country.

“Lafayette, LA lies two hours west of New Orleans, but might as well be a world away,” according to the travel website, Travlinmad. The fourth largest city in the state is situated at the crossroads of U.S. Highways 10 and 49, and if you head east on US 10, in about 50 miles you’ll hit Baton Rouge, which forms the apex of a flat sort of triangle with Lafayette and New Orleans.

We are still in the very early stages of Opportunity Zone deals, and with this new incentive for a variety of businesses in designated underserved communities, it appears as if one size isn’t going to fit all.

The Project Rental Assistance Contract, known as PRAC, was instituted in 1990 into HUD’s Section 202 Supportive Housing for the Elderly program to subsidize one of the most needy and vulnerable cohorts of the population: low-income seniors.

I was born and raised in Washington, DC, and though I’ve traveled around the United States and the world, personally and professionally, the Nation’s Capital has always been my home. The city has a static and somewhat clichéd image, based on our wealth of museums, monuments and other tourist attractions, as well as the less than attractive impressions emanating out of Capitol Hill and 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

On Friday, September 28, 2018, the city of Minneapolis released a 500-page comprehensive development plan that the mayor dubbed “a forward-thinking vision.”

USA Properties discovered that 25 percent of the residents in its senior communities moved out due to health issues. With two-thirds of its portfolio involving seniors, President and CEO Geoff Brown wondered what else he could do in the senior space.

In late 2016, the Millennia Companies, a vertically integrated real estate development and management firm in Cleveland, OH, that owns and manages nearly 30,000 residential units spread across 27 states, entered into a contract to purchase a portfolio of Section 8 properties from the financially troubled Global Ministries Foundation (GMF) of Memphis, TN.

Opportunity Zones are a new designation aimed at bringing business, housing, jobs and prosperity into economically challenged areas.

Brian McGeady and Michael Riechman share a dedication to affordable housing, a dedication that is reflected in the origin story of their new company, MVAH Partners.

The question is: Why would a successful, experienced developer that relatively easily could have raised the $7.2 million needed to build a mixed-use Opportunity Zone project in northwest Philadelphia from a small number of well-heeled investors, instead go for a complex financing structure involving investments as small as $500?

These comments were offered by Steven E. Lawson, chairman of The Lawson Companies, on behalf of the National Association of Home Builders at a September 6 hearing of the Housing and Insurance Subcommittee of the House of Representatives Financial Services Committee.