At the end of last year, Dina Blankenship, an accountant with Universal Supply Co., wanted to be part of the revitalization of downtown Mobile. She decided to invest capital gains she’d accrued in a property in downtown Mobile, between Dauphin Street and Government Street.
Blankenship and a few other investors decided to use the federal Opportunity Zone program to their advantage, Blankenship said, emphasizing that she is only speaking on her personal experience, not on the experiences of the other investors.
Because the property sits in an “opportunity zone,” a census tract designated by the state as low-income or disadvantaged, she and the others could pool their gains into a “qualified opportunity fund” and purchase the property. In exchange, they’d be able to defer taxes on their capital gains, and if they held the money in the fund for ten years, they won’t have to pay the taxes at all.
The program has paid off well for Blankenship and will benefit downtown Mobile: She says that the 4,000 square foot property built in 1950 will eventually become a mixed-use development, with both retail and rental housing. Blankenship hopes to have the restoration of the property completed by the end of this year or early next year.
“Our biggest thing is that, just being from Mobile, and being deeply rooted, it’s important to us to be able to make Mobile a little bit better,” she said. “Right now, we’ve got a great economic growth going on in Mobile. And just to kind of continue on that momentum.”