While some say the future of industrial is vertical warehouses, others speculate the future of the sector may look quite different. Amazon has made headlines recently as the company snapped up disused shopping malls and began turning them into distribution centers. Indeed, malls in the right demographic locations can be too expensive to purchase and demolish, and the building types that accommodate last mile needs don’t need excessive land bays in most cases, so malls can be a strong candidate for conversion to last mile distribution centers. In this webinar, Jeffrey Brown, founding partner and CEO of Powers Brown Architecture, will dive into this phenomenon and share why it’s important that Amazon, who is already adept at warping warehousing typologies, is interested in malls.

The Opportunity Zone tax incentive aims to stimulate investment in real estate and businesses located in under-invested, low-income communities designated as an Opportunity Zone (OZ). This panel will grade how the program has done since its inception in 2018. Has it achieved its legislative intent? Did the incentive generate the volume of capital anticipated? What is the expected impact on OZ investors and investment sponsors when one of the OZ benefits sunsets on December 31, 2021? Finally, the panel will comment on potential legislative updates.