Some low-income and ripe-for-development areas in Watertown have the opportunity to be injected with thousands – even millions – of dollars in private investments, utilizing a new economic development tool put in place last year by Congress.

The Watertown Development Company (WDC), along with the SD Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED) and South Dakota Housing Development Authority (SDHDA) will provide information to anyone interested in utilizing the newly created Opportunity Zone program to spur housing and commercial projects in Watertown.

Some of the city’s poorest census tracts were nominated earlier this year by Gov. Dennis Daugaard as federal “opportunity zones,” which were established by Congress in the 2017 tax bill to encourage long-term investments in low-income urban and rural communities.

The idea is to attract private investment by providing investors a way to avoid capital gains taxes by investing money for a certain period of time in the opportunity zones.

The WDC, along with the GOED and SDHDA, believes the new Opportunity Zone designation has the potential to spur significant capital investment, and would like to ensure interested parties have the chance to hear about the latest requirements and discuss any specific projects that are of interest to them.

Anyone interested in learning more about the Opportunity Zone program is invited to attend a meeting that will take place on September 20^th at Lake Area Tech at 2:30 p.m. on the 4^th floor of the Lake Area Tech Student Center located at 1201 Arrow Avenue NE.