1.9m multifamily units to be developed in opportunity zones

About 1.9 million multifamily units, 960 million square feet of office space and 180 million square feet of self-storage space are either in place or under construction in opportunity zones, according to a white paper from Yardi Matrix.

The white paper notes opportunity zones have attracted intense interest from real estate investors because they “draw from a new base of largely untapped investors” and offer value-add opportunities in “new markets that were thought to be too small or risky as investment strategies.”

Among the other opportunity zone faces reported in the white paper:

The development pipeline — projects approved but not begun — includes 450,000 multifamily units, 120 million square feet of office space and 12 million square feet of self storage space. Washington, D.C.; Phoenix; and Brooklyn, N.Y., have the most multifamily units in place and under construction. Houston, Detroit and Portland, Ore., are the leader