The County of San Bernardino is looking to opportunity zones to help the market recover from the pandemic and economic fallout. There are 57 opportunity zones in the County, and two ongoing opportunity zone projects. These sites could have the potential to attract developers and investors back to the market and catalyze new development.

"Opportunity Zones are designed to spur economic development by providing tax benefits to investors," Soua Vang, interim economic development director of San Bernardino County, tells GlobeSt.com. "The Opportunity Zones tax incentive provides a strong add-on benefit for incremental returns, lowering required risk-adjusted yields expected by investors. San Bernardino County further benefits as California's second highest concentration of Opportunity Zones."

San Bernardino is an ideal location to take advantage of these tax benefits, and in turn, that could give the market momentum for growth—which was occurring prior to the pandemic. "San Bernardino County is the largest county in the contiguous United States and one of the nation's most populous. The Opportunity Zones incentive is just one mechanism developers can utilize to achieve targeted returns," says Vang. "The strength of the OZ incentive is in its malleability to contribute to the capital stack, with almost no restriction on the type of investment or utilization of public incentives/grants. San Bernardino County has 57 of the 879 OZ in California or a 6% ratio. The high concentration of census tracts coupled with the County's proximity to the coastal communities and comparatively low cost of acquisition position its OZs to deliver one of the State's highest long-term investment and community impact returns."