Erie Times: Erie to be Featured at Opportunity Zones Summit

By Jim Martin

On Monday, Erie will have a chance to take its story to an even larger audience.

Federal Opportunity Zones, created in 2017 by Congress to encourage long-term investments in low-income urban and rural communities, haven’t been around for long. In fact, it was just earlier this year that final rules for investing were released.

But in a relatively short time, Erie has gained notoriety as an early adopter of the program, winning media attention and invitations to speak about its early adoption of the program, which provides incentives to invest capital gains in low-income census tracts

On Friday, for instance, John Persinger, CEO of the Erie Downtown Development Corp., was returning from Columbus, Ohio, where he spoke about Opportunity Zones and at the 2019 Greater Ohio Policy Council Annual Summit.

On Monday, Erie, which has developed a prospectus highlighting its eight Opportunity Zones, all of which have been certified by Gov. Tom Wolf, will have a chance to take its story to an even larger audience.

The EDDC, the Erie Innovation District and the Flagship Opportunity Zone Development Co. will be attending the first national Opportunity Zone Investor Summit at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California.

The event, which is by invitation only, is hosted by the Accelerator for America, Economic Innovation Group, the Governance Project and Drexel University Nowak Metro Finance Lab. More than 300 people, many of them financial investors and philanthropic institutions, will gather for a day of meetings and breakout discussions.

As part of one of those sessions, Persinger will speak about the creation of his group and the Erie Downtown Equity Fund.

“This event is huge,” Persinger said. “It’s kind of the pinnacle.”

It’s also an event that will feature Erie in a substantial way.

In fact, the story of Erie is a thread that will run through the daylong summit, said Matt Wachter, vice president of finance and development for the EDDC.

In addition to Persinger’s presentation, Erie will have the opportunity to pitch an Opportunity Zone project during a series of “lightning round” presentations to a group of more than 50 Opportunity Zone investors.

Wachter, who will be testifying about Opportunity Zones next week before the Pennsylvania House Urban Affairs Committee, said Erie also will be the focus of a presentation by the Mastercard Center for Income Growth.

“They had reached out to us and asked if we would be willing to work with them to develop a pilot program that would use their resources and analytical abilities to track and develop a framework to track the social impact of an investment made in an Opportunity Zone,” he said. “Their goal is to create a tool that will allow the EDDC to show that an investment in the Erie Opportunity Zone will help turn the needle in a challenged community.”

Wachter and Persinger will be making the trip along with Karl Sanchack, CEO of the Erie Innovation District, and Brett Wiler, director of capital formation for the Flagship Opportunity Zone Development Corp.

“I am really excited about this, the fact that this is going to put Erie on display,” Wachter said. “This is a real credit to what we have done. This is a real stamp of approval.”

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