Photo: JERRY LARA /San Antonio Express-News
Texas has landed its first investment project under a portion of the $1.5 trillion tax overhaul signed by President Donald Trump in 2017 designed to encourage investment in economically distressed areas.
DPR Investments —a San Antonio-based business management company with some commercial real estate holdings — will build a $16-million, climate-controlled self-storage facility with flex space at the Brooks master-planned community of San Antonio’s South Side, officials announced Tuesday.
In April, the U.S. Treasury Department designated Brooks and 23 other census tracts in the San Antonio area “opportunity zones” under the Republican tax bill — economically disadvantaged areas where investors can park their capital in long-term investments in exchange for reduced or, if they keep that investment long enough, eliminated capital-gains tax burden.
Officials have said the provision could prompt billions of dollars’ worth of new investment in areas with slow economic growth.
“Texas is leading the way with one of the first secured Opportunity Zone investments in the country,” Gov. Greg Abbott said in a statement. “The Opportunity Zone program highlights areas of Texas, like Brooks, that are prime for business investment, and I’m thrilled to see that come to fruition.”
DPR Investments, which owns the food truck park StreetFare SA on Austin Highway, has purchased 9.4 acres at Brooks to develop the self-storage facility, according to a news release. DPR decided to build the facility after commissioning five studies to determine the land’s best use, the release said.
DPR expects to break ground on the development in fall 2019.
“We’re thrilled to lead the way for San Antonio and the state of Texas to capitalize on this great community development program,” Brooks CEO Leo Gomez said in a statement. “Our Opportunity Zone designation gives us yet another incentive as we continue to attract quality investors, like DPR Investments, to the south side.”
The areas selected by Treasury to become “opportunity zones” include large chunks of the East Side near Fort Sam Houston, much of downtown San Antonio, areas of the West Side close to downtown along Commerce Street, Port San Antonio, Kelly Air Force Base, portions of the South Side, Stinson Municipal Airport and the Northeast Corridor — which includes a stretch of Perrin Beitel and Nacogdoches roads that extends to O’Connor Road.
Treasury also picked wide swaths of southern Bexar County that cover Von Ormy, Toyota’s manufacturing plant, Texas A&M University San Antonio, Braunig Lake and Elmendorf.
Governors were allowed in March to nominate a quarter of all eligible census tracts in their state — areas where the poverty rate is at least 20 percent and where median family income is no more than 80 percent of the region’s median income.
Gov. Greg Abbott nominated 628 census tracts in 145 Texas counties as potential opportunity zones last month, including 24 in Bexar County. San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg had submitted 27 tracts for consideration by Abbott’s office in February.
Article originally published here: San Antonio lands Texas’ first ‘opportunity zone’ investment under Trump tax bill
