EJF Capital (EJF) and joint venture partner North Signal Capital have closed on a $75.1 million senior construction loan from Bank OZK to develop three class A warehouses at RiverPort Commerce Park, located less than 10 miles from the Port of Savannah, Ga., the fastest-growing container terminal in the United States.
The buildings are in a Qualified Opportunity Zone (QOZ) under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA), which offers investors tax benefits to invest into Opportunity Zones with the aim of spurring economic growth in lower-income areas.
To date, the venture between EJF and North Signal has completed and fully leased four distribution warehouses at RiverPort totaling 1.3 million square feet and serving nine tenants. The new construction will result in three new state-of-the-art buildings — Building 5, Building 6 and Building 7 — with a combined 1.3 million square feet of additional warehouse space.
Building 5 is a 127,000-square-foot rear-load bu
