LATELY INTEREST IN COMMERCIAL REAL estate has been running high around Opportunity Zones and adaptive reuse, with the latter expected to be recognized as a distinct product category within commercial real estate by 2021.

It is little wonder as the business case for each category of investment is compelling; for various reasons they are good end-of-the-cycle plays. Not surprisingly, as they are both relatively new to the market—especially Opportunity Zones—participants have a lot of questions. What are the best development strategies for adapt? What is the latest word from the Treasury Department on Opportunity Zones? What is working right now for investors and what isn't?

We answer a lot of those questions in this issue.

Starting on page 18, our cover story Opportunity Zones on the March, looks at the latest regulations and how some companies are structuring projects to meet the requirements. You'll meet some of the earliest investors in these zones, such as Driftwood Acquisitions and Development, Avanath Development and Virtua.

Partners, and see what is working for them.

Then on page 23, we tackle adaptive reuse—or more specifically, we present our top selection of projects in this area. The projects featured fall into several categories including Economic Revitalization and Historic Preservation. We also took a look at some of the top Opportunity Zone projects underway in this section—while they are a separate category from adaptive reuse they quite often can overlap.

This is a meaty issue, though, and there is far more here than just our (if I may say so) robust cover stories. We also take a look at the changing flows of global commercial real estate investment on page 42. Not only are they changing but there was also a decline in global sales this year and we explore that too. On page 43 we cover Transwestern's and GlobeSt.'s Real Estate Forum's Institutional Insurance Investors Symposium in which a handful of highly-credentialed executives talk about their strategies for this part of the aging (and possibly ending) cycle.

Other stories you don't want to miss include an article about tokenization and the new doors it is opening for CRE investors, as well as our regular Building Balance column. We hope you enjoy this issue's line up of stories.

Erika Morphy Managing Editor

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Erika Morphy

Erika Morphy has been writing about commercial real estate at GlobeSt.com for more than ten years, covering the capital markets, the Mid-Atlantic region and national topics. She's a nerd so favorite examples of the former include accounting standards, Basel III and what Congress is brewing.