{"id":182,"date":"2023-11-25T14:24:36","date_gmt":"2023-11-25T18:24:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/opportunityzones\/?p=182"},"modified":"2026-09-08T12:21:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T16:21:10","slug":"njeda-creates-emerging-developer-fund-makes-grants-of-up-to-200000-for-pre-development-costs-available-for-small-scale-developers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/opportunityzones\/2023\/11\/25\/njeda-creates-emerging-developer-fund-makes-grants-of-up-to-200000-for-pre-development-costs-available-for-small-scale-developers\/","title":{"rendered":"NJEDA Creates Emerging Developer Fund – makes grants of up to $200,000 for pre-development costs available for small scale developers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week, the\u00a0New Jersey Economic Development Authority<\/a>\u00a0(NJEDA<\/strong>) Board approved a new $20 million pilot program to support \u201crising real estate developers\u201d. The\u00a0Emerging Developer Fund<\/u><\/em> is designed to help developers gain access to capital and build additional capacity to expand their existing portfolio.<\/p>\n

Access to capital for \u201csmall-scale developers<\/strong>\u201d in the real estate development industry continues to be a challenge according to the NJEDA. These barriers include predatory lending, excessive carrying costs, and predevelopment expenses a developer may encounter. These pre-development costs are incurred by the developer before they can seek short-term construction financing. Often times, new developers lack the resources to cover these types of costs which they are pursuing projects \u2013 including design costs, environmental due diligence, site work diligence, permitting costs and the costs to prepare a financial model for a particular project.<\/p>\n

The Emerging Developer Fund<\/em><\/strong> will provide grants of up to $200,000<\/u><\/strong> to assist small-scale developers with up to 50% of their pre-development soft costs. The program will support \u201csmall-scale developers\u201d that have completed at least two \u2013 but no more than five \u2013 commercial and\/or mixed-use properties of similar scope. The creation of the program is intended by NJEDA to address various difficulties that continue to be a constant burden to emerging developers, which limit opportunities to expand their portfolios.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we work to revitalize communities across the state, we must ensure new, emerging developers have access to the same opportunities and advantages in order to create an inclusive economy,\u201d\u00a0said NJEDA Chief Executive Officer Tim Sullivan<\/strong>. \u201cThe Emerging Developer Fund will better position small-scale developers to grow and succeed, which will ultimately help build stronger communities. The program\u2019s focus on developers in underserved communities underscore\u2019s Governor Murphy and Lieutenant Governor Way\u2019s commitment to creating a stronger, fairer economy and improving the lives of hardworking New Jerseyans.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cProjects located in Opportunity Zones<\/u><\/strong> or in a Government Restricted Municipality (GRM)<\/u><\/strong> will receive an additional $50,000 bonus<\/strong>, increasing its award to $250,000<\/strong>. There are 169 designated Opportunity Zones and three GRM\u2019s, including Atlantic City, Paterson, and Trenton.<\/p>\n

According to the NJEDA press release, \u201csoft costs eligible to be covered<\/strong> by the program include, insurance costs, legal fees, utilities, property taxes, construction drawings, and design fees<\/strong>. Costs associated with purchase of property or construction are not<\/u> eligible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Follow the Yellow Brick Road<\/strong>\u00a0<\/em>\u2013 this program is a nice supplement to the NJ approved federal Opportunity Zone program and recognizes that smaller developers (as well as others) often times have trouble cobbling together the initial costs to pursue change in the various neighborhoods where Opportunity Zones exist in NJ (and beyond).\u00a0 NJEDA’s program will help address some of these issue by providing assistance to help with various soft costs and assist in getting a project moving from ideation to reality.\u00a0 While this may not be sufficient to get a large scale project off the ground, $250,000 can indeed go a long way to helping with environmental review, site review, planning and contracting to get control of a site and help move it to a more likely ability to execute.<\/p>\n

Duane Morris<\/strong>\u00a0has an active\u00a0Tax Credits and Opportunity Zone Team<\/strong> to help organizations and individuals plan, respond to, and invest in Opportunity Zones and low income areas throughout the USA, including the US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico using tax credit equity and standard equity. We have closed over 385 OZ deals since their inception and are actively working on over 13 OZ projects for owner\/developers, investors and business owners at the moment. We would be happy to discussion your proposed project with you.<\/p>\n

Contact your Duane Morris attorney for more information. Prior Alerts on the topic are available on the team\u2019s webpage.<\/p>\n

If you have any questions about this post, please contact\u00a0Robert Montejo, Lee Potter,\u00a0 Parthiv Patel, Anastasios Kastrinakis, Cristina Sanchez <\/strong>or the attorney in the firm with whom you are regularly in contact.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week, the\u00a0New Jersey Economic Development Authority\u00a0(NJEDA) Board approved a new $20 million pilot program to support \u201crising real estate developers\u201d. The\u00a0Emerging Developer Fund is designed to help developers gain access to capital and build additional capacity to expand their existing portfolio. Access to capital for \u201csmall-scale developers\u201d in the real estate development industry continues … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “NJEDA Creates Emerging Developer Fund – makes grants of up to $200,000 for pre-development costs available for small scale developers”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[309,314,310,315,180,311,313,167,102,265,301,299,312],"ppma_author":[187],"class_list":["post-182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-309","tag-314","tag-310","tag-000-bonus","tag-anastacios-kastrinakis","tag-cristi-sanchez","tag-emerging-developers","tag-lee-potter","tag-njeda","tag-opportunity-zone","tag-parthiv-patel","tag-robert-montego","tag-small-developer-program"],"authors":[{"term_id":187,"user_id":6,"is_guest":0,"slug":"duanemorris3","display_name":"Duane Morris","avatar_url":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/opportunityzones\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/49\/2020\/10\/dmlogo.jpg","author_category":"1","last_name":"Davies","first_name":"Thomas","job_title":"","user_url":"https:\/\/www.duanemorris.com","description":"Visit the Duane Morris website.<\/a>"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/opportunityzones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/opportunityzones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/opportunityzones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/opportunityzones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/opportunityzones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/opportunityzones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":293,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/opportunityzones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182\/revisions\/293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/opportunityzones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/opportunityzones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/opportunityzones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/opportunityzones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}