WASHINGTON (WNCT) U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross announced that the Department’s Economic Development Administration (EDA) is awarding a nearly $3.3 million grant to the Carteret County-Beaufort Airport Authority in Beaufort to rebuild airport hangar buildings damaged and destroyed by Hurricanes Florence and Dorian.

The EDA grant, to be located near a Tax Cuts and Jobs Act Opportunity Zone, will be matched with $821,950 in local funds and is expected to create 65 jobs and spur $25.6 million in private investment.

The project was made possible by the regional planning efforts led by the Eastern Carolina Council of Governments, which EDA funds to bring together the public and private sectors to create an economic development roadmap to strengthen the regional economy, support private capital investment and create jobs.

The funding announced will help catalyze private investment in a nearby Opportunity Zone.

Created by President Donald J. Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, Opportunity Zones are spurring economic development in economically-distressed communities nationwide.

In June 2019, EDA added Opportunity Zones as an Investment Priority, which increases the number of catalytic Opportunity Zone-related projects that EDA can fund to fuel greater public investment in these areas.

To learn more about the Commerce Department’s work in Opportunity Zones, please visit EDA’s Opportunity Zones webpage.

The project is funded by the Additional Supplemental Appropriations for Disaster Relief Act of 2019 (Pub. L. 116-20), which provided EDA with $600 million in additional Economic Adjustment Assistance (EAA) Program funds for disaster relief and recovery for areas affected by Hurricanes Florence, Michael, and Lane, Typhoons Yutu and Mangkhut, wildfires, volcanic eruptions, and other major natural disasters occurring in calendar year 2018, and tornadoes and floods occurring in calendar year 2019, under the Robert T. Stafford Act.

Visit EDA’s Disaster Supplemental webpage for more information.