Quinn Palomino

Opportunity zone investors should develop an industry-adopted set of best practices. There is a frenzy around the new investment model—which provides an exemption for capital gains tax in exchange for investing in neglected communities—but investors need to remember the social impact component of the legislation. These best practices include job creation, job training and job quality, which will collectively provide economic mobility for people living in these communities.

“This is great legislation, and we need to adopt best practices standards. If we develop a project, we need to be able to evaluate the number of jobs. Second, this can't just be a clock-in, clock-out job,” Quinn Palomino, principal and co-founder of Virtua Partners, tells GlobeSt.com. “We need to be able to measure the quality of the job. Third, we need to be able to measure the job training. People feel like if they didn't get a college education, they can't move into the middle class. These are the three areas that we think are critical to develop a best-practice standard and apply that to the industry.”

Virtua Partners has broken ground on the first opportunity zone project, the 130-room Springhill Suites by Marriott in a suburb of Phoenix. She says that hospitality can provide the balance needed for opportunity zone developments—returns for investors and job creation for the community. “Hospitality can provide healthy returns,” says Palomino. “It isn't easy. We have be creative on our projects and mitigate the innate risk that comes with development and construction.”