Gwinnett Place Mall Could Get an Opportunity Zone Boost

Georgia has submitted its nominations for the opportunity zone 2.0 program, and the Gwinnett Place Mall site is on the list. Bisnow reporter Jarred Schenke reported on October 29, 2026 that Governor Brian Kemp nominated 235 census tracts across the state for the program, which offers tax breaks to developers who steer investment toward lower-income areas. If the zones are certified, prominent redevelopment projects in those areas could get financial incentives, potentially speeding up their timelines.

The proposed map includes 115 tracts in rural areas of the state, out of a pool of nearly 950 tracts that were considered, according to data compiled by Opportunity Zone Invest. Metro Atlanta nominations include 31 tracts in Fulton County, a dozen in DeKalb County and seven in Cobb County. Georgia also nominated 13 census tracts in Gwinnett County, including the land that houses Gwinnett Place Mall, which the county has targeted for a major mixed-use redevelopment.

Gwinnett County's redevelopment arm tapped CBRE last year to begin plans to bring in a master developer who would transform the now-closed indoor mall into up to 3,800 new housing units, 55,000 square feet of retail, a nearly five-acre park, office space and an international community cultural center. CBRE issued a request for proposals last year, with a submission process that was slated to close last December.

The first opportunity zone program, created under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, was designed to spur private investment in economically challenged and low-income communities. It lets investors redeploy capital gains into projects and businesses in designated zones to defer taxes.

The 2.0 program, enacted under President Donald Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act, makes the program permanent, with new designations made every decade starting January 1, 2027. To date, the Treasury has designated more than 8,700 census tracts nationwide, including 260 in Georgia. Georgia submitted its nominated tracts in September, and certified zones would take effect in January.

Another major Gwinnett project also falls under a nominated tract: Gateway Gwinnett, the planned mixed-use hub on 106 acres at the former OFS fiber-optics campus. In March, the Urban Redevelopment Agency of Gwinnett County tapped CBRE to seek developers for the site, targeting a mix of apartments, office, retail and industrial.

Elsewhere on the proposed map, RBH Group's Atlanta Teacher's Village would create 430 income-restricted apartments in a 33-story Downtown tower, and the Mall West End redevelopment would transform an ailing mall into roughly 1,000 residential units, a hotel and retail. Georgia-Pacific's Downtown Atlanta headquarters also sits in a nominated tract, though the company scrapped plans to redevelop part of its 51-story skyscraper into mixed use because of project costs.

Gwinnett Economic Development Division Director Alena Green told Bisnow the designations represent "a tremendous opportunity to attract new private investment" that will foster economic development and expand opportunities for revitalization. She described the program as a way to add funding diversification to the county's toolkit as project financing and construction costs limit development opportunities.

Sherman Standberry, an Atlanta-based CPA who advises clients on the tax benefits of opportunity zones, told Bisnow he is "personally happy about the census tracts connected to Fulton County" given the existing potential for residential and commercial redevelopment. Many of his clients are interested in areas close to the Atlanta metropolitan area, he said, and tracts in Savannah may also present a strong investment opportunity.

An opportunity zone designation is a financing story before it is a construction story. It does not fund a project or break ground on one; it changes the tax math for the investors a project like Gwinnett Place needs. The county has been lining up the structure since last year: a master developer search, an RFP process, and now a possible federal incentive on the mall site.

The list is a nomination, not a certification. Certified zones would take effect in January, and the redevelopment timelines the county has published have not moved. For buyers and sellers in Gwinnett, the practical signal is the same one this site has used all year, tracked in the Gwinnett County community pages: the county keeps compounding the tools and the sites, and jobs and rooftops follow in stages, not in headlines.

As reported by Jarred Schenke of Bisnow, October 29, 2026, drawing on Georgia's opportunity zone 2.0 nominations, an email from Gwinnett Economic Development Division Director Alena Green, a response from CPA Sherman Standberry, and a Bisnow analysis of the state's interactive OZ map. Figures and quotes are as stated in the report, not estimates.