Members of the Augusta Aviation Commission want to know how to tap into a federal program to develop property around the airport.
The commission wants to know how it can use the federal government’s Opportunity Zones to spark industrial, commercial and residential development around the airport.
The U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service have designated Opportunity Zones in 18 States, including 260 census tracts in Georgia. Augusta has three such zones, the largest stretches from near Lake Olmstead south past the airport.
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To that end, they named six members, Lynn Gladney, Davis Beman, Larry Harris, Mason McKnight, Michael Cioffi and Randy Sasser to an ad hoc committee to explore the options.
Gladney, who chairs the ad hoc committee and Davis gave a presentation to the full commission during the May 26 regular meeting.
Cal Wray, president of the Augusta Economic Development Authority, and Shawn Edwards, executive director of the Augusta Land Bank Authority, had attended the commission’s February meeting to explain how their offices can help develop an Opportunity Zone around the airport.
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Wray said the first thing his office needs is direction from the commission about what they envision.
“We need to know from their master plan, what do they want? Where do they want it? And how does that tie in into an opportunity zone because a lot of these opportunity zones have types of projects to invest in,” said Wray during that meeting.
“We didn’t really have that defined, we didn’t really have that answer,” Gladney said during her presentation in May. “So, we determined, and I’m talking Commissioner Berman and myself, we determined that we needed to understand that better. So, we decided to come up with a marketing plan, so that we can see exactly what people wanted, what the community needed, and how we needed to move forward to do that.”
Beman is principal of the Beman Group and director of commercial real estate with the Blanchard and Calhoun Real Estate Company’s Commercial Division.
Gladney told the aviation commission Beman’s expertise in research and attracting businesses makes him the right person to begin using his existing contacts with industries and companies. He will provide information on local resources and ask what they need, what attracts them to set up operations in a specific area.
“These resources that we have for the airport are not just south Augusta, not just Richmond County, not just CSRA. I mean, whether it’s FedEx or UPS, or some of these bigger companies, we’re an avenue, we’re a conduit for them to come through a market now,” said Beman. “So, we put out our resources, we find out who might be interested. And then we figure out how do we meet their need better than another community can to attract them here. We’re using the marketing to put out there our assets to get information, figure out what the need is, and then build around that.”
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Beman said, initially, they would need to attract larger businesses and companies with higher numbers of employees. The goal is to have people move here for the jobs while retaining local people. After that, smaller businesses, particularly retail companies, will show interest in building here.
“You can’t expect a grocery store to come and put themselves in that food desert just because there’s not the grocery store here,” he said. “You’ve got to grow the rooftops, you got to grow the employment, you’ve got to grow that need. It’s starting with what resources we already have, meet the need of somebody else who can grow the rooftops to meet the resources of local community.”
Edwards explained, after the businesses start establishing operations, his office can use that to go to residential developers.
The federal opportunity zones were designed to attract investment in areas where the poverty rate is higher than 20%. Investors can defer federal taxes by using capital gains from other investments to create opportunities in the designated area.
There are more than 8,700 federal opportunity zones in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and five U.S. territories.
Information on the federal program is available here:
https://www.irs.gov/credits-deductions/businesses/opportunity-zones
The Georgia Department of Community Affairs website has a page with details about the Opportunity Zones:
https://www.dca.ga.gov/community-economic-development/incentive-programs/federal-opportunity-zones
South Carolina has 135 zones, including three in Aiken County: https://www.scopportunityzone.com/
Dana Lynn McIntyre is a general assignment reporter for The Augusta Press. Reach her at dana@theaugustapress.com
