The combination of opportunity zones and shared office space is creating incubators of start-ups and investors in underserved markets.
By Tom Acitelli| The New York Times
Opportunity zones were created to spur development in distressed neighborhoods, but developers in some areas are struggling to find tenants for their new properties. Their savior may be another rising trend in commercial real estate: co-working.
Lured by the lower cost of shared office space, start-ups also gain access to a network of eager investors looking for companies to back, a combination that is helping to create incubators in underserved markets.
The former General Electric campus in Fort Wayne, Ind., a long-planned development called Electric Works, sits in an opportunity zone. The project encompasses 2.7 million square feet, and co-working is expected to account for more than 72,000 square feet of that space.
“Co-work spaces may be one of the best operating business structures within the opportunity zone framework, as to both the impact of dollars invested and investor returns.”
