Opportunities Zone Investments: Timing rules, maximize benefits, and avoid pitfalls

Brad A. Molotsky | Duane Morris LLP

Brad A. Molotsky practices in the area of real estate law. He serves as the team lead for the Duane Morris Project Development/P3 industry group and as co-head of the firm’s Opportunity Zones practice group. Mr. Molotsky’s primary practice is focused in the areas of opportunity zone fund creation and fund deployment, financing, public private partnership (PPP or P-3), real estate joint ventures (including mixed-use, life sciences and multi-family development), commercial leasing (including a focus in cannabis leasing), and acquisitions and divestitures. He also has deep experience in environmental, social, governance, public company issues such as enterprise risk, internal audit, compensation, as well as energy efficiency, sustainability and corporate social responsibility.

Prior to joining Duane Morris and for nearly 20 years, Brad served as executive vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary of Brandywine Realty Trust. At Brandywine, Mr. Molotsky was responsible for all legal operations of the company, including acquisitions and divestitures, financings, joint ventures, board matters, insurance procurement, litigation oversight, SEC filing oversight and the legal aspects of capital raising. During his tenure, the company grew from 40 buildings to approximately 300 buildings, totaling 28 million square feet.

In 2020, Mr. Molotsky was named a national influencer in the Opportunity Zone space by OZ Magazine and won The Philadelphia Inquirer Influencers of Law Award for Real Estate. He was also named by The Philadelphia Inquirer as an Influencer of Real Estate for Real Estate Legal Excellence in 2019. He was also named in TheLegal Intelligencer’s list of Pennsylvania Trailblazers for 2019. Mr. Molotsky was named one of Philadelphia Business Journal’s 2018 “Best of the Bar: Top Lawyers in Philadelphia. He was also named General Counsel of the year by the Philadelphia Business Journal in 2014 and NJBIZ in 2013 and was awarded the Martin Luther King Community Service award in 2014, the Township Sustainability Leader Award in 2016 and the Roger Davis Community Service Award in 2017.

Mr. Molotsky is a 1989 cum laude graduate of Villanova University Law School, where he was Order of the Coif, and also earned an M.B.A. in Finance from Villanova University. He is a 1986 cum laude graduate of the University of Delaware. Mr. Molotsky has also earned his LEED AP O+M certification. He also has earned an AV Preeminent® peer review rating from Martindale- Hubbell®.

Emily Lavery | Fulcrum Public Affairs

Emily Lavery joined Fulcrum as a Vice President in January 2023 after spending nearly seven years working on Capitol Hill for Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) and, more recently, as an investment advisor to ultra-high net worth investors at top global investment firm AllianceBernstein (AB). There, she directly managed over $115 million dollars in private wealth on behalf of her clients, which included designing custom investment portfolios, directing and executing trades, providing client-specific capital markets and tax analysis, advising on the macro-economic and geopolitical landscape, and aiding clients with long-term wealth and tax planning solutions.

Prior, Emily served as Staff Director for the Senate Finance Subcommittee on Energy, Natural Resources, and Infrastructure, and senior advisor for tax, trade, and economic policy to Senator Tim Scott (R-SC). She served in this role throughout the drafting and passage of the historic Families First Coronavirus Response Act, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, and the COVID-19 tax relief included in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021, and during implementation of TCJA.

She also served as the lead advisor for the implementation of Senator Scott’s keystone initiative, the Opportunity Zone tax incentive. She worked closely with the White House, Treasury, HUD, USDA, Commerce, multiple other agencies, the committees of jurisdiction, members on both sides of the aisle and in both chambers, and key stakeholders to shape the final regulations, secure multiple rounds of COVID-19 regulatory relief, and introduce multiple related perfecting bills for the incentive. Emily earned her J.D. from the Washington College of Law at American University where she was a Jurist Merit Scholar. She also currently holds her Series 7, Series 66, and Securities Industry Essentials certifications from FINRA.

Joseph J. Scalio | KPMG LLP

Joe is one of KPMG’s Senior Lead Tax Partners and KPMG’s National Co-Leader in the Qualified Opportunity Zone (“QOZ”) Practice. He additionally is KPMG’s Pennsylvania Business Unit Tax Leader for the Pass-through, Asset Management, and Real Estate Practices. He is also the Global Lead Tax Partner for Tishman Speyer.

Joe has provided tax advisory, tax modeling, and tax reporting services for the following asset management entities: Investment Funds including Limited Partnerships (“LPs”), Regulated Investment Companies (“RICs”), Business Development Companies (“BDCs”), Small Business Investment Companies (“SBICs”), Qualified Opportunity Funds (“QOFs”), Regulated Investment Advisors entities (General Partners and Management Companies), and Portfolio Companies.

He has provided tax advisory, tax structuring and tax reporting services to Real Estate Investment Trusts (“REITs”), Umbrella Partnership Real Estate Investment Trusts (“UPREITs”), Umbrella Partnership C Corporations (“UPCs”), Publicly Traded Partnerships (“PTPs”), and Master Limited Partnerships (“MLPs”), and Qualified Opportunity Zone Businesses (“QOZBs”).

I. Is the OZ program still alive and where? | 12:00pm – 12:30pm

II. Timing rules for investments | 12:30pm – 1:00pm

Break | 1:00pm – 1:10pm

III. Benefits of being an OZ business | 1:10pm – 1:40pm

IV. Key Rules for businesses and for real estate | 1:40pm – 2:10pm