The County of San Bernardino is looking toopportunity zones to help the market recover from the pandemic andeconomic fallout. There are 57 opportunity zones in the County, andtwo ongoing opportunity zone projects. These sites could have thepotential to attract developers and investors back to the marketand catalyze new development.

"Opportunity Zones are designed to spur economic development byproviding tax benefits to investors," Soua Vang,interim economic development director of San Bernardino County,tells GlobeSt.com. "The Opportunity Zones tax incentive provides astrong add-on benefit for incremental returns, lowering requiredrisk-adjusted yields expected by investors. San Bernardino Countyfurther benefits as California's second highest concentration ofOpportunity Zones."

San Bernardino is an ideal location to take advantage of thesetax benefits, and in turn, that could give the market momentum forgrowth—which was occurring prior to the pandemic. "San BernardinoCounty is the largest county in the contiguous United States andone of the nation's most populous. The Opportunity Zones incentiveis just one mechanism developers can utilize to achieve targetedreturns," says Vang. "The strength of the OZ incentive is in itsmalleability to contribute to the capital stack, with almost norestriction on the type of investment or utilization of publicincentives/grants. San Bernardino County has 57 of the 879 OZ inCalifornia or a 6% ratio. The high concentration of census tractscoupled with the County's proximity to the coastal communities andcomparatively low cost of acquisition position its OZs to deliverone of the State's highest long-term investment and communityimpact returns."