In April, Lansing Mayor Andy Schor announced that the U.S. Department of Treasury designated seven opportunity zones in the city of Lansing. WKAR’s Katie Cook reports.

An opportunity zone is typically a low-income area that has experienced a lack of business growth.

To have areas designated as opportunity zones by the U.S. Department of Treasury means that incentives will be put in place to attract investors to these areas. Lansing Mayor Andy Schor explains.

“There are certain federal tax benefits to being within an opportunity zone, so somebody can decide they want to do some investment and development and they get favorable treatment with certain credits like new market tax credits and things like that and they also can get out of paying things like capital gains taxes.”

Lansing’s seven opportunity zones exist within 5 areas: The North Cedar/Larch Corridor, the South MLK Corridor, South Cedar Corridor, Downtown Lansing, and the North Grand River Corridor.

Mayor Schor says the next steps involve deciding how to market these zones to investors based on the needs of the areas, which could include housing, retail, commercial, and mixed-use buildings.

If you’re curious about these opportunity zones, you can find a map of them here.