While the North Texas opportunity zones map appears to be shrinking, Dallas-Fort Worth actually has significantly more nominated census tracts that will offer better options for developers.

The region is losing some of the larger opportunity zones from the first round of the federal program, but the total number of nominated tracts in DFW’s four major counties will more than triple with the new program. Among those 90 newly nominated zones are highly investable urban tracts that Savoy Cos. co-CEO Barrett Linburg expects will be quite popular. 

In the first iteration of the program, Texas attracted nearly $8B of the more than $112B that flowed into opportunity zones across the country by the end of 2024. With the program now permanent and more developers on board, Linburg said the total investment in Texas’ 608 nominated tracts could double over the next decade. 

"Dallas could easily have an extra $250M or $300M of equity coming into our low- and moderate-income areas per year for the next decade,” Linburg said. “That's enormous money that doesn't cost the city of Dallas anything."

Dallas County has the most nominated opportunity zones in the state with 60, including 44 in the city of Dallas alone. 

Those 44 zones could create “new opportunities in communities where additional investment can make a meaningful difference,” Dallas Assistant City Manager Robin Bentley said.

Picking The Zones

The Trump administration established the first iteration of the opportunity zone program with its Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, which aimed to incentivize economic development in underinvested parts of the country. 

By the end of 2024, 77% of the around 8,000 designated census tracts in the U.S. had received some portion of the $112B total investment, according to a U.S. Department of the Treasury report released this summer.

“It really was a good tool to get economic development and just equity and real estate projects moving,” Linburg said of the original opportunity zones. “And I say real estate projects because over 90% of the money that flowed did flow into real estate.”

The original opportunity zone program was set to sunset this year, but the One Big Beautiful Bill Act made it permanent.

The updated version, called OZ 2.0, gives investors a rolling, project-based 10-year tax break that lets them take full advantage of the program’s benefits regardless of when they started work on a project. 

Texas submitted its opportunity zone nominations on Sept. 4.

The state aimed to copy the success of Colorado and Utah with its OZ 2.0 selections, Linburg said. Those two states raked in nearly $8.5B of investment between them during the first go-round. 

State and county officials picked zones where projects can create jobs and grow the tax base over the next two to four years, Linburg said. To do that, Texas largely flipped its opportunity zones from rural areas that never saw a project to more urban tracts. 

In addition to Dallas County more than tripling its number of opportunity zones, Tarrant County is set to jump from seven to 20, Denton County will rise from three to seven, and Collin County will go from one to three. 

Under the original program, there were only three opportunity zones in DFW that Savoy seriously considered for investment. Out of the 44 nominated tracts in Dallas alone, Linburg said his company is excited about 25 of them. 

"It's a huge difference in the quality of the census tracts from a developer's perspective," Linburg said.

Future Activity

Savoy has raised nearly $100M of equity for work on 25 opportunity zone projects in the state. The firm focuses on multifamily projects, with most of its Dallas projects being in North Oak Cliff and the Cedars. 

Those tracts are set to be redesignated as opportunity zones in the new program, which will allow the company to continue its work in those neighborhoods.

"Now that we have newly designated neighborhoods in Dallas, we're excited to get to work in some new areas as well," Linburg said. 

A new area that Alternative Wealth Partners CEO Kelly Ann Winget, who co-founded an opportunity zone fund in 2023, said she believes will also benefit from the new program is the nominated tracts north of McKinney in counties such as Grayson, Fannin, Hunt, Lamar and Bowie. 

Winget’s OZ fund aims to find microindustrial manufacturing companies outside Texas that it can move into the state’s newly nominated zones. The DFW area is a great option for these types of companies because of its central location and vast array of logistics infrastructure. 

"We want to put the manufacturing jobs out there," Winget said, referring to areas like Sherman and between Greenville and Texarkana. 

For cities to take full advantage of their nominated opportunity zones, Winget said they need to lean into providing incentives for developers to build actual long-term, job-producing projects. 

While hopes are high in North Texas for the new version of the opportunity zone program, no one can predict exactly which nominated tracts will see the most investment. All of the region’s opportunity zones are competing for private investment, and those controlling the purse strings will ultimately have the final say.

“It's private capital that goes to where the best opportunities are, where the best census tracts are, because people are going to invest where they see the best returns,” Linburg said.