Commercial and multifamily loan originations soared in late 2025 as once-frozen credit markets resumed flowing freely, a lender said at an industry event in Portland on Thursday.

Multifamily loan originations grew 25 percent in the third quarter of 2025, while office loans nearly tripled as values reset and investors pounced, said Matt Dzbanek, a lender with Ariel Property Advisors.

Nationally, $936 billion in commercial real estate loans will mature this year, adding significant flexibility, according to Dzbanek. He predicted debt will sluice through real estate this year.

“There’s going to be a lot of liquidity in the market,” he said.

Dzbanek delivered his comments during HFO Investment Real Estate‘s annual multifamily market forecast at AVENUE on Northeast Grand Avenue. The brokerage’s 21st annual event Thursday brought together investors and others to hear from industry analysts.

Locally, the picture is mixed, analysts said. Multifamily vacancies rose to 5.47 percent in 2025, up from 4.49 percent a year earlier. But rents grew modestly in Portland’s metropolitan statistical area, from $2.04 per square foot on average in 2024 to $2.11 last year.

Rent growth will remain muted in the near term as older assets face greater price pressure, said Greg Frick, an HFO partner and the event’s moderator.

“Vintage matters more than ever,” he said.

New multifamily supply will remain sparse, with only 2,319 units permitted in 2025 through August in buildings of five units or more, according to census data.

Efforts to boost supply, including Portland’s waiver of system development charges, have yet to bear fruit.

“For market-rate (housing), the pipeline is very, very dry,” Frick said. “We do still see new deliveries being constrained.”

Frick predicted positive in-migration will continue in the Portland area this year after the population declined post-pandemic. Job growth has stabilized, he said.

Economist John W. Mitchell cited national statistics showing a “pretty dramatic slowing” in the labor market, with job openings falling. But neither are employers rapidly shedding jobs, he said.

“We’re in a no-hire, no-fire economy,” Mitchell said.

The U.S. economy grew at a 4.3 percent rate in the third quarter of 2025, buoyed by strong consumer spending. Years of rising stock prices have contributed to a “K-shaped” economy, where high-income consumers continue to spend, while lower-income consumers stagnate, Mitchell said.

Oregon continues to lag much of the nation. Job growth ranked 30th in the nation in the third quarter, while the state’s 5.2 percent unemployment rate was 47th.

One piece of good news for landlords: With high housing prices in many cities, it makes sense for many residents to rent, Mitchell said, citing a recent article in The Economist.

“For most people, it pays to rent,” Mitchell said. “That bodes well for your business.”

Melissa Wall, a certified public accountant for Aprio in Portland, discussed various real estate tax strategies for avoiding gains taxation. The 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act established permanent opportunity zones.

The investment zones — first rolled out in 2017 — allow real estate investors to avoid gains taxation if a qualified investment is held for 10 years, and provide certain lesser tax benefits if an investment is held for five or seven years.

Much of central Portland, including downtown, was designated an opportunity zone, providing an investment incentive as the area struggles with one of the highest office vacancy rates in the nation.

1031 exchanges, which allow real estate investors to roll the proceeds from a property sale into buying another piece of real estate, remain popular, Wall said. She urged investors to speak with a CPA.

“Complexity is increasing,” she said.

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A two-building office property in Portland’s Pearl District has sold to a fund managed by Rialto Capital Management LLC for $36.5 million.

The purchase comprises Fremont Place I and II – one two stories and the other three stories – at 1650 and 1750 N.W. Naito Parkway. The buildings offer a total of 123,600 square feet of office space. The buildings are 63 percent leased to tenants in the telecommunications, engineering, health care and other industries, according to a Jones Lang LaSalle news release.

The transaction equates to $295 per square foot.

Multnomah County recorded the transaction on Feb. 14. Rialto used a limited liability company, RREF III-P Fremont Place, registered in Miami. The seller was Fremont Place LP, an entity linked to Lincoln Property Co. of Dallas.

JLL secured a $37.3 million five-year acquisition and bridge loan from a debt fund. The loan will be used for the acquisition as well as interior and exterior renovations.

Rialto Capital aims to transform the buildings, constructed in 1987, into an “urban waterfront campus,” according to JLL. The buildings are along the Willamette River just south of the Fremont Bridge.

The new owner plans to build an outdoor amenity space.

JLL’s Capital Markets team representing Rialto Capital was led by Managing Director Casey Davidson and Director Zachary Kersten.

Lincoln Property Co. will continue to manage the office properties, and is moving forward with plans to build the Fremont Apartments, a 17-story multifamily building, on an adjacent parcel that currently serves as a surface parking lot for the office structures.

According to Patrick Gilligan, an executive vice president with Lincoln Property Co., the firm is partnering in a joint venture with Utah-based opportunity zone funder Bridge Investment Group. A $7.2 million foundation permit for the project is under review; Gilligan said the firm hopes construction will start this spring and finish in 2022.

The TVA Architects-designed project received the go-ahead in 2018 when the Portland City Council rejected an appeal from the Pearl District Neighborhood Association of prior approval issued by the Design Commission. Andersen Construction will serve as general contractor.

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A bill on the verge of reaching the floor of the Oregon House of Representatives would require opportunity zone funds in Oregon to provide information to state agencies, which would then study whether the tax benefits are providing public benefits.

House Bill 4010 would also reduce the generous tax treatment in state law of capital gains from opportunity zone funds, but not eliminate it entirely, as a previous version of the bill would have done.

Investors would pay capital gains tax on half the gains from the original basis after 10 years.

Bennett Minton, a tax watchdog with Tax Fairness Oregon, said the bill is a step in the right direction.

“Here we’re going to get a chance to study right now how it’s working,” he said.

Each opportunity zone fund would be required to submit an annual report to the Department of Business and Consumer Services. The reports, which would be due by Oct. 1, 2020, and each year thereafter, would contain a description of all assets held by the qualified opportunity funds, including addresses, and the ownership structure of any business in which the fund is invested, including whether the business is minority- or women-owned.

The House bill is in limbo, along with the rest of the short session, after Republican legislators walked out Monday, depriving the Legislature of a quorum.

The bill had its second reading Monday, and a third reading is scheduled for Tuesday. It’s sponsored by Rep. Nancy Nathanson, D-Eugene.

Opportunity zones have sparked considerable interest from investors, particularly in Portland, where an opportunity zone covers valuable real estate including much of downtown, the Pearl District and Central Eastside. Several projects, including the Block 216 tower, are using the funds.

Critics charge that the tax gains go to projects that would be built anyway, and decry the lack of information on how opportunity zones are being used. At the federal level, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, has sponsored legislation that would institute reporting requirements.

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A major affordable housing developer has requested an exemption to proposed legislation that would decouple Oregon’s tax treatment of opportunity zone projects from federal tax benefits.

Legislators are considering a bill that would eliminate state tax benefits for one year while the federally recognized opportunity zones play out in Oregon and across the nation.

While most opportunity fund investments in Portland have flowed to large and expensive market-rate projects, some affordable housing developers are using opportunity zone benefits to attract investors.

“We are using opportunity zones – mostly in affordable housing deals,” said Cynthia Parker, chief executive of BRIDGE Housing, one of the West Coast’s largest developers of affordable housing.

Parker submitted written testimony to the Oregon Legislature lobbying for an exception for affordable housing if the bill, House Bill 4010, is passed.

“Since the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was passed, BRIDGE has worked diligently with investors to educate and promote usage of the (opportunity zone) program for the benefit of affordable housing developments,” Parker wrote. “We strongly recommend that a carve-out be made that would allow (opportunity zone) investors to receive tax benefits from both the federal and state if the underlying Qualified Opportunity Zone Business were an affordable housing development.”

A carve-out would create a 10 percent to 20 percent increase in yield for investors, Parker estimated. That makes it appealing for socially minded investors.

“It’s going to be a special-impact investor who wants to make a difference,” Parker said. “It’s not a deep subsidy; it was never intended to be a deep subsidy.”

BRIDGE Housing is seeking investors for an affordable housing project in Southwest Portland’s RiverPlace area, Parker said.

The so-called “decoupling” bill would dent the tax benefits for investors in Portland’s opportunity zone, which has received national attention for its location in highly desirable areas including downtown, portions of the Pearl District and Central Eastside Industrial District.

By reducing the tax benefit investors could expect, it could also make it more difficult for affordable housing developers to raise funds.

Democrats and tax-fairness critics have blasted opportunity zones for offering capital gains tax benefits that go to wealthy investors. Critics argue that many opportunity zone projects would still get built without the subsidies.

“Who’s going to not invest because they got a haircut?” said Bennett Minton, a tax policy watchdog with Tax Fairness Oregon. “Either the projects work or they don’t.”

Bill sponsor Rep. Nancy Nathanson, D-Eugene, did not directly answer questions about Parker’s carve-out request. Nathanson serves as chairwoman of the House Revenue Committee.

“The conversation is ongoing about the opportunity zones legislation and the issue remains in flux,” she stated in an email. “I remain committed to a conversation about the value of opportunity zones.”

In Portland, opportunity zone investments have so far gone to large market-rate projects including the Block 216 mixed-use tower, the PAE Living Building and a proposed Sturgeon Development Partners office building.

Opportunity zones offer a number of tax benefits. Primarily, they encourage investors to hold onto a property for 10 years to avoid capital gains tax.

Other affordable housing developers are watching and waiting. Dan Valliere, CEO of REACH Community Development Corp., said the nonprofit is not actively pursuing opportunity zone funding. He questioned whether opportunity zones will help spur investment where it’s most needed.

“The way it’s structured now, there’s very little accountability to make sure this is creating social impacts,” Valliere said. “They’re just standard real estate investments, which is fine. But it doesn’t really make sense to give it a tax benefit.”

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Legislators are gathering in Salem for a five-week session that could have long-lasting effects on construction, commercial real estate and development.

Or, it could end with another walkout by Senate Republicans, limiting legislative progress on a host of priorities set forth by Gov. Kate Brown, House Speaker Tina Kotek and other Democratic leaders.

The Oregon Legislature will convene on Monday. At the top of the agenda for Democrats, who control both chambers, is cap-and-trade legislation that would limit carbon emissions. It’s broadly similar to systems in other states that cap emissions and let polluters trade for credit, with twists to address Oregon’s urban-rural divide.

Conversations are under way to persuade Senate Republicans to stay in Salem for the session.

“We’re hoping that they’re not going to use the same tactics and basically kill the short session, because there’s other important legislation that needs to be dealt with,” Rep. Mark Meek, D-Clackamas County, said.

Brown made a case for climate change legislation on Monday at a City Club event in Portland.

“We must do something meaningful and soon about climate change,” she said. “This is the challenge of our time.”

Yet Brown turned aside a critical question about the Oregon Department of Transportation‘s nearly $1 billion Rose Quarter project.

“We absolutely must address the Rose Quarter issue to increase safety and, at the same time we can do this with a layer of congestion pricing, and that should make sure it’s carbon neutral,” Brown said Monday.

Several changes have been made to climate change legislation that the House passed last year. The new Senate Bill 1530 would sharpen different approaches for urban and rural Oregon. The bill would require 80 percent of fund raised to be spent locally. ODOT would receive the remaining 20 percent, but the agency would be required to spend much of the revenue where it’s raised.

The cap-and-trade – or, to supporters, “cap and invest” – bill would roll out gradually by region, with Portland first subject to the requirements in 2022. Other cities would follow in 2025. Rural areas would have the option of opting in thereafter, but would not be required to do so.

“The majority of truly rural communities will be exempted from price increases at the pump,” Brown said.

The city of Portland has supported legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but hasn’t taken a position on the Senate bill, said Elizabeth Edwards, director of the city’s Office of Government Relations. “We’re reviewing it now and getting input,” she said.

The Senate Republican caucus did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In other legislation:

• Brown has filed a resolution, H.J.R. 203, which would authorize real estate transfer taxes to fund affordable housing. The resolution would be referred to voters as a constitutional amendment. It would essentially undo Measure 79, a 2012 ballot measure that prohibits real estate transfer taxes.

If the new measure were approved, the transfer fees would not apply to the first $500,000 of real estate value, exempting most home sales. (The median price of a Portland-area home was $410,000 in 2018, according to RMLS, and most rural areas have lower property values). The bill is likely to attract fierce opposition from the real estate industry.

• State Rep. Nancy Nathanson, D-Eugene, is sponsoring a bill that would “disconnect” state taxes from federal opportunity zone tax breaks. Investors would still earn federal tax breaks, but not additional state tax breaks, she stated in an email.

“The intent was to provide incentives for investors to invest in low-income communities,” Nathanson stated. “The cost to the state, however, is significant – estimated at $10 million or more for the first year – and legislators, constituents and some advocacy organizations are questioning whether the public benefit is worth the loss of revenue to fund critical programs.”

The bill would suspend state opportunity zone tax breaks for a year to allow time for a study of Oregon’s zones.

Portland’s opportunity zone has received national attention for its location covering downtown, Pearl District and Central Eastside real estate that is highly desirable to developers. Opportunity zone funds have been created in Portland for the 35-story Block 216 tower, a luxury hotel and condominium project; 11 West, a 25-story mixed-use building; and a proposed eight-story office building in the Central Eastside.

“The goal would be to come back next year and find out whether we want to reconnect with these opportunity zone breaks with a better understanding of what would best suit Oregonians and how we could best support Oregon,” Meek said.

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Earlier this month, on a temporary stage set up on the Block 216 parking lot for a ground-breaking ceremony, an investment manager pitched to an audience of potential investors and VIPs an opportunity zone fund for the 35-story tower in downtown Portland.

Lenders and investment managers from San Francisco and Philadelphia discussed the $600 million project, the scale of which had attracted national capital. Mayor Ted Wheeler heaped praise upon the project. Meanwhile, a sleek, black Bentley sat parked where only days earlier an Iraqi food cart had been selling $8 shawarma.

An 844,117-square-foot tower with a Ritz-Carlton hotel and condos may not be the type of urban renewal foreseen by advocates of opportunity zone tax breaks, but it’s the type of project attracting investment.

It’s unclear how much of a role the Block 216 opportunity zone fund is playing in the project. Mosaic Real Estate Investors previously announced a $460 million, four-year construction loan. Terms of Ritz-Carlton’s deal have not been disclosed.

Tracey Nguyen, a partner at Baker Tilly Capital in Philadelphia, is managing the Block 216 opportunity zone fund. She referred requests for comment to Pat Walsh, a spokesman for developer Walt Bowen’s BPM Real Estate Group. Walsh declined to comment on the project’s financing.

Nationally, it’s difficult to assess how opportunity zone funds are functioning, who is using them, which zones are attracting registered funds or how much money they’re raising.

Opportunity zone funds are not subject to public disclosure, and there appears to be no comprehensive list or database of registered funds.

Opportunity zone funds stem from a federal tax law enacted in December 2017. The funds provide tax benefits for long-term asset holders. After 10 years, investors don’t have to pay any tax on capital gains realized for a property.

It was pitched as a boon for places passed over by the long economic expansion. Opportunity zones are “designed to spur economic development and job creation in distressed communities,” according to the Treasury Department.

Portland’s opportunity zones drew national interest because they cover much of the city’s most desirable real estate, including portions of downtown, the Pearl District and the inner Central Eastside. Yet, so far, opportunity zone activity appears to be modest.

“It hasn’t been a tsunami of opportunity zone funds, but I continue to see activity there,” said Dan Eller, a tax attorney with Schwabe, Williamson and Wyatt.

Eller said timing has been a deterrent for some clients who had considered opportunity zone funds.

“Some people had transactions that were ongoing that happened to be in opportunity zones, and looked into doing an opportunity zone fund, but just the timing of connecting investors with their project didn’t work, and so the fund didn’t take off,” he said.

Sturgeon Development Partners has raised $8 million for its opportunity zone fund; the firm’s goal is $330 million. The fund is backing construction of a 126-room hotel in downtown Salem. Demolition began at the site on July 15.

“Interest has been very steady,” co-founder Vanessa Sturgeon said.

More Sturgeon Development Partners fund projects lie in the future, she added.

“We expect to leave the fund open for the next four years or so, and continue to take investments on a rolling basis,” she said.

Sturgeon is eyeing Portland’s Central Eastside Industrial District for a second project: a seven-story office building to be constructed with cross-laminated timber. She declined to reveal the property’s precise location.

The Sturgeon Development Partners opportunity zone fund is one of a handful backing local projects. The Goodman family’s Downtown Development Group is working to form single-asset funds for both the Eleven West mixed-use tower at Southwest 11th Avenue and Washington Street, and the PAE Living Building at Southwest Second Avenue and Pine Street, co-President Greg Goodman said.

The Eleven West project will involve an opportunity zone fund in a 50-50 arrangement with a partner, said Goodman, who declined to identify the other investor. Construction of the project, which won Design Commission approval in December 2017, has not begun yet.

Eleven West vested before inclusionary housing rules required developers to provide below-market-rate multifamily units. The project wouldn’t be financially possible today, Goodman said.

“There hasn’t been a new high-rise in downtown Portland in 28 months with inclusionary housing,” he said. “While the opportunity zoning is good, it doesn’t offset the inclusionary zoning on the high-rise. The inclusionary zoning has shut that market down.”

Some investors have shied away from investing in multi-asset opportunity zone funds, fearing a lack of control or oversight compared to single-asset funds. A potential stumbling block is that investors must also be prepared to pay income tax on deferred gain in 2026.

In May, a bipartisan group in Congress introduced companion bills to require data collecting and reporting that was stripped from the original opportunity zone legislation. The bills were referred to the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means committees and have not advanced.

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Local opportunity zone investors are looking ahead at how to exit after a 10-year window to fully realize tax benefits.

Vanessa Sturgeon, who co-founded Sturgeon Development Partners‘ opportunity zone fund, said the plan is to have flexibility as to when properties are sold off.

“After a 10-year period, we wonder if there’s going to be a huge amount of inventory on the market,” she said.

Opportunity zone funds have until 2047 to sell their assets.

Sturgeon’s comments came Thursday during a hosted by the 91��Ƶ at the Sentinel Hotel. Sturgeon was joined on the panel by Dan Eller, a tax attorney at Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt; and John Olivier, senior vice president of acquisitions and development at ScanlanKemperBard. Schwabe attorney Paige Spratt moderated the event.

Questions have swirled around opportunity zones since the federal tax law establishing them was enacted in December 2017. Oregon’s opportunity zones have gained national attention because they cover some of the state’s most expensive real estate, including in downtown Portland, the Pearl District and the Central Eastside.

While opportunity zones could be a boon to some investors, helping to defer, reduce and eventually eliminate capital gains tax, Eller said he’s been warning clients to be prepared to pay income tax in 2026 under the law’s provisions.

“You have to have the ability to pay the tax,” he said.

In some cases, Eller said, he has urged clients to use more familiar 1031 exchanges instead.

Sturgeon said opportunity zone investors should back only projects that make economic sense even without the new benefits.

“We’re looking at projects that have solid investment fundamentals no matter what,” she said.

Olivier agreed, saying the tax incentives may not encourage new building on their own.

“I don’t know that it’s going to create a wave of development,” he said. “I don’t think we’ll see a lot of projects that people are doing just for the sake of doing projects.”

Nevertheless, both Sturgeon and Olivier said their phones are ringing off the hook with calls from investors seeking opportunity zone projects. Investors are viewing opportunity zone funds as long-term vehicles that should outlast the next recession.

“If you capitalize your project correctly (and) not go too heavy on the debt side, you can ride out the correction to the investment horizon,” Olivier said.

The breakfast panel was briefly interrupted by protesters from SEIU Local 49, who have objected to Sturgeon’s use of nonunion janitors at Park Avenue West. The protesters eventually left after being asked to do so.

Sturgeon cautioned investors to be aware of the underlying assumptions in opportunity zone projects, and to question the amount of fees. In some cases, Wall Street firms are charging up to 14 percent fees, she said.

“There’s no meat left on the bone for the investor,” Sturgeon said.

Wall Street firms such as Goldman Sachs and Chase have started their own opportunity zone funds. Sturgeon said her fund is often competing against the fund launched by Anthony Scaramucci, a former White House communications director who served the Trump administration.

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Downtown property owners and some of Portland’s wealthiest families are busily looking to form opportunity zone funds by taking advantage of a tax break in federal law.

Opportunity zones emanate from a federal tax bill that was enacted in December 2017. Seeking to encourage investment in blighted areas, the law allows for certain tax benefits for long-term real estate investors.

The opportunity zones are drawn from Census tracts. In Portland, that has yielded a curious situation that has made some very wealthy people very excited: Portland’s opportunity zone covers some of the city’s most expensive and desirable real estate, including downtown and portions of the Pearl District, South Waterfront District and Central Eastside Industrial District.

“Portland’s opportunity zone is a fabulous opportunity zone, and it’s getting a lot of attention nationally,” said Vanessa Sturgeon, a Portland developer who has formed a public opportunity fund.

Portland’s opportunity zone is home to recently constructed business hotels, multifamily developments and corporate office projects. Broadway Tower, soon to be home to Amazon, is in Portland’s opportunity zone. So is the new Woodlark Hotel on Alder Street. So is Portland’s largest building, the U.S. Bancorp Tower (better known as Big Pink), and its tallest building, the Wells Fargo Center.

Opportunity zones could also figure in major planned redevelopments. Both the Broadway Corridor and Oregon Museum of Science and Industry’s campus are within opportunity zones.

Sturgeon said she and two others who have formed Sturgeon Development Partners are considering a handful of sites for one or more major opportunity zone projects. Nick Fritel is chief financial officer and Robert Pile is vice president of construction. They’re seeking to raise about $328 million for the projects.

Sturgeon said she and her partners are considering sites on both sides of the Willamette River.

“We’re really working on four different tower sites,” she said. “So we’re in due diligence on several sites. We don’t know whether we’ll do one or two, but they’re sprinkled all over Portland.”

Sturgeon Development Partners is also using an opportunity zone fund to back a hotel project in Salem. The 126-room hotel would be built on the site of a condemned parking structure at 195 Commercial St. S.E.

“The Salem market, it’s really becoming part of the greater economic region of Portland, and it’s highly underserved right now,” Sturgeon said.

Sturgeon was approached by Chris Duffin, president of LMC Construction, about redeveloping the property.

“It’s a block that is blighting downtown Salem, and the city is supportive of seeing something there,” she said.

The offering period for Sturgeon Development Partners’ opportunity zone funds began on Nov. 30 and ends March 31, 2019.

The Goodman family is also considering forming an opportunity zone fund with other investors to develop the Eleven West tower, said Greg Goodman, co-president of Downtown Development Group.

An opportunity zone fund will be used to develop Eleven West, and another one will be used at Downtown Development Group’s property at Southwest Second Avenue and Pine Street, Goodman said. Eleven West received design review approval in December 2017 but ground has not been broken yet.

Downtown Development Group will own half the opportunity fund at Eleven West, Goodman said. The Goodmans have hired Newmark Knight Frank to find and evaluate potential joint-venture partners.

“11-W will get capitalized,” Goodman said. “It will get done.”

The advent of opportunity zones has sparked bidding wars for highly desirable properties.

“You really have to pick your spots because you’re already seeing a bid-up for spots in opportunity zones,” said Todd Gooding, president of ScanlanKemperBard.

SKB plans to use opportunity zone funds for at least two multifamily projects – one in Tigard and another in Vancouver, Washington. The new developments will have 180 to 200 multifamily units each.

“Having the longer-term capital is extremely attractive for the stability of our portfolio and to create real, long-term wealth,” Gooding said.

For developers, opportunity zone benefits could push across the finish line some projects that have been on hold because of inclusionary housing regulations and escalating construction costs.

“Some of these projects that wouldn’t pencil might pencil,” Sturgeon said.

Interest in opportunity zones has been high locally, said Owen Blank, a real-estate attorney and partner at Tonkon Torp.

Opportunity zones have the advantages of deferring, reducing and eventually forgiving capital gains tax, he said.

“It’s a far more flexible program than some of the other tax credit programs, (such as) like-kind exchange,” he said. “Any kind of capital gain could be invested in an opportunity zone fund. It doesn’t have to be from the sale of real estate, or even the sale of a business.”

Opportunity zone funds are beneficial for long-term investors. Merchant developers, or investors looking to quickly flip a property, will not realize many advantages from these tax treatments, Blank said.

Discounted tax rates kick in after five years and seven years. But the biggest benefit happens after 10 years.

“The benefit that has really caught people’s attention is if you hold the investment for 10 years, and then sell your stock in the fund; the appreciation in value escapes tax,” Blank said. “You can imagine why that’s caught some people’s attention.”

Opportunity funds are still new, and some questions remain to be resolved by future Internal Revenue Service guidance, Blank said. For example, how investors can exit, or what happens when an investor dies, remain unanswered.

“There are still some significant unanswered questions pertaining to the operational issues over those 10 years,” Blank said.

Other opportunity zones include areas around Portland International Airport, Gresham, Beaverton, Hillsboro, Forest Grove, Tigard, Tualatin, Wilsonville and Oregon City. Oregon has 86 opportunity zones, and there are about 9,000 scattered throughout the nation.

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