New Regional Center (ND, MN)

The USCIS list of approved Regional Centers has been updated as of 4/21 with one interesting new center, a first for both North Dakota and Minnesota. The website link associates it with the University of North Dakota Center for Innovation, and I assume that EB-5 investment will soon be added to the “Entrepreneur Financing” options offered by the center. If the applicants had called me prior to filing their proposal I might have responded with cold water — alerting them that a geographic range covering all of one state and part of another is difficult for an economic analysis based on multipliers, and cautioning them about including such a wide range of broadly defined industries, each of which will have to be illustrated by a sample project and narrowed enough to enable job counts. Fortunately they didn’t call me, and what do you know this center has been approved. Congrats UND!

UND Center for Innovation Foundation Regional Center (www.innovators.net)
Geographic Scope: The entire State of North Dakota and 20 counties in Northwestern Minnesota, which includes Kittson, Roseau, Marshall, Pennington, Beltrami, Red Lake, Polk, Norman, Clay, Otter Tail, Douglas, Pope, Traverse, Stevens, Wilkin, Becker, Mahnomen, Clearwater, Grant and Lake of the Woods.
Industries: Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing & Hunting; Manufacturing; Construction Machinery Manufacturing; Mining Machinery Manufacturing; Aerospace Product & Parts Manufacturing; Information; Research and Development in Biotechnology; Electric Power Transmission, Control and Distribution; Real Estate