Fort Worth Business Press, June 2, 2014 Vol. 26, No. 21 | Page 16

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June 2 - 8, 2014 | fwbusinesspress.com

EB-5 program is a key investment vehicle

M

ore than four years have
passed since many prominent economists declared
an end to the Great Recession that
plagued the North Texas economy
from December 2007 through the better part of 2009.
Our economy is heading in the
right direction, but it continues to
grow slowly. We can speed up the
pace of our economic growth, diversify our economic base and create
more jobs, but Congress needs to
support a key Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) vehicle that will help
drive our economy forward.
The North Texas economy is primed
for growth. Last year, our region grew
approximately 4.3 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic
Analysis. We can attribute this growth
to our considerable assets, which
include a pro-business culture, worldclass infrastructure, strong presence
of industry-leading companies, strategic location and a superior quality of
life. While the North Texas economy
outpaced the state in 2013, we need
more FDI to take advantage of these

FOREIGN
INVESTMENTS

The cities of Dallas and Fort Worth have established publicprivate partnerships with Civitas EB-5 Funds designed to
attract Foreign Direct Investment and create jobs at zero
cost to taxpayers.

DAN HEALY
significant assets.
One way to attract and deploy foreign capital is through EB-5 regional
centers, which are public-private
partnerships. This structure is made
possible by a federal government
program enabling regional centers to
attract job-creating investments from
overseas investors.
Under the program, each investor is
required to demonstrate that at least 10
new jobs will be created as a result of
the EB-5 investment, which must be a
minimum of $1 million, or $500,000
if the funds are invested in high-unemployment or rural areas. EB-5 regional
centers pool capital from multiple
investors and invest it in important
economic development projects.
The cities of Dallas and Fort Worth
have established public-private partnerships with Civitas EB-5 funds designed

to attract FDI and create jobs at zero
cost to taxpayers. Through these
partnerships, which align with each
city’s economic development priorities,
Civitas has invested more than $300
million of EB-5 capital in a wide range
of job-creating projects.
And nationally, a comprehensive
peer-reviewed economic study commissioned and recently published by
the Association to Invest in the USA
(IIUSA) found that the EB-5 program
contributed approximately $3.4 billion
to the U.S. gross domestic product and
supported over 42,000 U.S. jobs during
fiscal year 2012. This is more than a
100 percent increase from the average
annual impact result reported in 2011.
One example of a successful project
in our backyard is the NYLO Dallas
South Side Hotel, which was completed in 2012. Matthews Southwest
developed the $20 million project,

which included $5.5 million in EB-5
financing from the city of Dallas Regional Center.
The funds were used to transform
a nearly 100-year-old building into
the first full-service hotel opened in
southern Dallas in over 50 years. In addition to creating more than 100 direct
and indirect jobs, the hotel’s opening
marked an acceleration of the emergence of the Cedars neighborhood as
one to watch as Dallas’ urban renaissance continues.
Economists expect the EB-5 program
to have an even greater economic
impact in 2013 as investor applications
are on the rise. Currently, there are
over 7,000 pending EB-5 investor applications, representing $3.5 billion in
potential investment and 70,000 jobs.
The competition for FDI is strong,
with more than 25 countries, including
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