New OZ Fund Focuses on Multifamily, Self Storage and Hospitality
There has been considerable interest in the fund’s projects with the flow of traffic actually increasing, says co-founder Edmond Rakipi.
CLEARWATER, FL—Locally-based Opp Zone Capital LLC has launched the OZC– Southern US RE QOF Qualified Opportunity Fund and is seeking accredited investors for mixed-use, multifamily, self-storage and hotel development in the Southeast and Southwest. The fund is authorized to raise $40 million for opportunistic opportunity zone acquisitions.
The fund was co-founded by Edmond Rakipi and Jeanine Warhurst Blake. Rakipi, who has extensive financial service industry experience, will serve as chief investment officer. Blake, who is the former SVP of global partnerships for PODS Enterprises—the portable moving and storage company founded by her father, Peter Warhurst—will serve as COO.
Rakipi tells GlobeSt.com that OZC has investors lined up.
“Obviously, being from the wealth management side, I have ultra-high net worth relationships and family office relationships. Obviously, Jeanine and her family when they were doing the capital raising for PODS made a lot of people wealthy and made a lot of connections in the private equity world. That was a clear entry point for us.”
Investing primarily in real estate assets within the self-storage, multifamily and hospitality sectors, the fund will pursue investment in these sectors that are located within designated opportunity zones. The managers of the fund say they believe these targets to be stable and high-growth real estate assets positioned in secondary and tertiary markets throughout the Southern US such as Mesa, Tampa, San Antonio, Houston, and Atlanta.
Early anticipated projects include a self-storage facility in Fort Myers and an assisted living facility in Clearwater.
While the firm is launching in the midst of the coronavirus crisis, Rakipi says there has been considerable interest in the fund’s projects.
“The flow of traffic has actually increased,” he says. “I’m not sure if it was people just sliding from equities into tangible assets like real estate or just simply people being home and doing some planning and work, but interest ramped up.”
Rakipi projects that multifamily and self-storage offer the greatest immediate opportunities for the fund. Noting the toll coronavirus has taken on the hospitality industry, he says that requires caution, but he says it absolutely will be an area of interest in 18 to 24 months.
“The biggest thing is the team we have put together, whether it be PWC as our tax and audit team, or NES as our fund administrative services to J.P. Morgan for our treasury services,” Rakipi says. “We made sure we put together the best back office team we could find and the best internal team.”