IIUSA Executive Director, Members to Speak at ICIC Event at Harvard Kennedy School Tomorrow

Putting Foreign Capital to Work Through EB-5 – July 1st, Harvard Kennedy School

ICIC, or the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City, is hosting an event next Tuesday July 1st titled “Putting Foreign Capital to Work Through EB-5” at the Harvard Kennedy School in Cambridge, MA. For over 15 years, ICIC has advised cities about cluster-led economic development and growing inner city businesses to drive urban revitalization in America’s inner cities. This focus of the event will be to facilitate EB-5 investment that addresses economic development issues in inner cities.

In the morning session, IIUSA Executive Director Peter D. Joseph will take part in a Q & A session with conference attendees on how the EB-5 Program works and help tackle inquiries into what type of projects are viable for the EB-5 Program.

Next, IIUSA Director and Jay Peak Resort President/CEO Bill Stenger and Jillian Fortuna, COO of EB-5 Jobs for MA Regional Center will team up on a panel to discuss the challenges and opportunities of structuring EB-5 deals. Mr. Stenger who has successfully attracted 550 foreign investors from 60 countries to invest $275 million for a redevelopment of the Jay Peak ski complex and Ms. Fortuna, who has completed smaller scale projects in Allston and New Bedford, MA will use their personal experiences to illuminate how variables such as waiting on EB-5 adjudications, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) policy changes can effect their decisions in the marketplace.

After lunch, there will be a presentation focusing on real estate and infrastructure models that have successfully used EB-5. This panel will include IIUSA members Gabriel Hidalgo, Managing Director of Civitas Capital Group, Birch Capital LLC Principals J. Bruce Ricciuti and Ben Cummings and CMB Regional Center’s Senior Vice President Kraig Schwigen.

The subsequent panel highlighting EB-5 as a source of capital for businesses includes IIUSA members Taher Kameli, Executive Director of Chicagoland Foreign Investment Group (CFIG) and Gonzalo Lopez Jordan, Manager of American Regional Center Group (ARCG). CFIG’s development of memory care centers and ARCG Nevada Regional Center’s investment in a large-scale geothermal project will serve as examples for how EB-5 can be deployed in diverse ways in cities and communities around the country.

To View the full ICIC EB-5 Impact Investing in Inner Cities Agenda,Click Here.

How Inner Cities are Using EB-5 to Improve their Local Business Environments

The infographic below (PDF) highlights the process of using EB-5 for Brooklyn Navy Yard’s first EB-5 funded project through IIUSA President’s Advisory Council member, New York City Regional Center (NYCRC). The project, officially known as Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Fund II, LLC, funds infrastructure improvements at the Navy Yard and the rehabilitation of the Green Manufacturing Center, which was touted by The City University of New York (CUNY) Chancellor and New York City Regional Council Co-Chair Matthew Goldstein as “a crucial piece of the twenty-first century infrastructure needed to support environmentally sustainable advanced manufacturing in New York City.”

To read ICIC’s blog post in full, click here.

IIUSA Executive Director, Members to Speak at ICIC Event at Harvard Kennedy School Tomorrow

Putting Foreign Capital to Work Through EB-5 – July 1st, Harvard Kennedy School

How Inner Cities are Using EB-5 to Improve their Local Business Environments

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