News
Visas = Jobs
September 23, 2010
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| Prescott Realty Group's Ben Hidalgo, MAPP Construction's Shannon Telles, and GE Capital Real Estate's Doug Nash were among The Real Estate Council members at a fireside chat earlier this month in The Tower Club focusing on how visas equate to jobs and capture foreign investment. Dallas economic development director Karl Zavitkovsky says the City of Dallas Regional Center program, started in 2009, is an economic development initiative designed to open a new source of foreign private capital that can be aligned with the Dallas Public-Private Partnership Program. This program allocates 10k visas per year to foreign investors with the assurance that each investor must make a minimum investment of $5k and promise to generate 10 permanent jobs over a two-year span, he says. City leaders will work hand-in-hand with Civitas Capital Management to serve as the third-party manager of CDRC, he says. | |
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| Karl (here with other speakers, Dallas City Council member Ron Natinsky, Matthews Southwest prez Jack Matthews, and Strasburger & Price partner and Civitas Capital Management chairman Jason Barnes) says once an investor is ID'd, they are matched with an offering. Each investor is screened and Civitas evaluates and approves investment opportunities, identifying and aggregating foreign investment capital, investment management, and immigration compliance. The investor gains a green card and his/her money back over a two-year span, and a return on capital. Jack adds that returns can be as low as 5% and as high as 12%, but the goal is to bring economic development to Dallas. This initiative has the potential to benefit not only the investors, but the city as a whole, he says. |
