ATLANTA—Specialty asset management and financial services firm Civitas Capital Group reports that the United States Citizen and Immigration Services has approved the establishment of the Civitas Atlanta Regional Center.
The Civitas Atlanta Regional Center will operate as an officially designated EB-5 regional center for the city of Atlanta and is expected to facilitate substantial and valuable economic development within Clayton, Cobb, DeKalb, Fulton, and Gwinnett counties, officials with the Dallas-based company say. The Regional Center will seek foreign investors to fund a variety of real estate investments, including multifamily and mixed-use residential developments, office developments, and senior housing facilities, as well as investments in other industries such as corporate finance for local businesses to expand.
USCIS administers the Immigrant Investor Program, also known as EB-5, which was created by Congress in 1990 to stimulate the U.S. economy through job creation and capital investment by foreign investors. Under a pilot immigration program first enacted in 1992 and regularly reauthorized since, certain EB-5 visas also are set aside for investors in Regional Centers designated by USCIS based on proposals for promoting economic growth.
"We are excited about the opening of the Civitas Atlanta Regional Center," says Civitas' Chief Executive Officer Dan Healy. "Atlanta has attractive real estate development projects and our Regional Center can provide meaningful capital to push projects forward, which will create jobs and promote economic growth in the process."
Through its EB-5 Investments division, Civitas is the manager of 10 Regional Centers throughout the United States, which have funded or are in the process of providing hundreds of millions of EB-5 capital funding to a range of real estate development projects, the company states. Civitas is also the exclusive EB-5 partner for several Texas cities, including Dallas, Fort Worth, Laredo, and El Paso. In January, the firm announced that the USCIS had approved the establishment of the Cintas Denver Regional Center, which also specializes in EB-5 investment.
"As we expand across the U.S., we're looking for compelling EB-5 investment opportunities for the global investors we serve," Healy says. "EB-5 investors are becoming more sophisticated and the industry is institutionalizing. If we take prudent steps, as we did with the opening of our Denver and Miami Regional Centers earlier this year, I believe we will be well positioned to continue to play a leading role in the industry."
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John Jordan
John Jordan is a veteran journalist with 36 years of print and digital media experience.
