A pedigreed Atlanta developer found its downtown redevelopment project partially within a qualified opportunity zone, and now it is trying to take advantage of that fact.
Carter is marketing 7 acres at its Summerhill project to investors who may want to invest their capital gains into developing the lot into a hotel or an office building. Carter has planned for 700K SF of office and retail space, 300 multifamily units and a 130-room hotel on the parcel, which was carved out because of its location in an opportunity zone.
Investors who place capital gains into a qualified opportunity fund and invest in projects or businesses located in the zones — chosen by each state's governor after the program was passed as part of President Donald Trump's signature 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act — don't have to pay taxes on those gains if they hold the investment until 2027.
“The way things are moving and you are starting to see more and more projects being held longer-term, which starts to marry up with OZ investing anyway,” Carter Executive Vice President David Nelson told Bisnow.
Carter has tapped Transwestern to market the land toward office users and developers while using JLL to market it toward retail developers.
The site is part of the larger Summerhill mixed-use project, centered around the redevelopment of Turner Field — the home stadium of the Atlanta Braves before they moved to Cobb County — into a new stadium for Georgia State University. Carter has already developed a string of retail centers in the area and partnered with Aspen Heights, which developed a 300-unit student housing facility.
That building is sitting on land also designated within the opportunity zone, but the developer moved ahead with traditional financing, Nelson said.
Carter was one of many Atlanta landowners who found themselves with holdings suddenly benefiting from a possibly lucrative tax break, and some have begun to take advantage of that designation.
Most recently, the United Way sold 100 Edgewood, a 306K SF Downtown Atlanta office tower across from Hurt Park, to Parkway Property Investments, which financed the deal with funding from opportunity zone investors.
