Abbott nominates two Nocona-area tracts for Opportunity Zone status

Gov. Greg Abbott has nominated two census tracts in the Nocona area of Montague County for federal Opportunity Zone status, according to records posted by his office, advancing a local push for downtown investment through the same incentive Gainesville officials recommended pursuing for Cooke County nearly a year ago.

Mayor Christopher Nunneley said in a Sept. 10 statement that the city went after the tax advantages to bring new shops downtown and to make a marina at the lake possible.

What the designation delivers elsewhere is less settled. The U.S. Government Accountability Office reported Aug. 24 that Opportunity Zone money has gone mostly into real estate development and has tended to favor urban locations with existing infrastructure and community support. Most states told the GAO they could not judge the program's overall effects; about one in five reported more job creation and housing.

Cooke County has two tracts on the same 2026 list. Gainesville's Oct. 7, 2025, council packet recommended supporting new designations and lining up the economic development corporation, the chamber, the county and private businesses, with staff stressing that an application show both investment need and growth potential.

Texas describes Abbott's step more narrowly than approval. The state sent its list to Washington on Sept. 4 and expects the Treasury to certify the tracts by late November, the governor's office says. Certified zones would run ten years beginning Jan. 1, 2027. Original zones stay eligible through 2028 and do not renew on their own.

Nocona's council cleared the way in February. Minutes record a unanimous Feb. 10 vote letting the Nocona Economic Development Corporation's Type A and Type B boards proceed with the application, on a motion from Chuck Hittle seconded by Rob Norman. At that meeting the city's economic development director reported examining three potentially eligible properties near the Nocona Boot Company building against the program's median-income and poverty requirements.

Nocona sits in northern Montague County, per the city's website, and Census Bureau geocoding places City Hall on Clay Street inside one of the two nominated tracts. State mapping data classify both as rural, a label that carries weight under the rewritten program. IRS guidance issued this year gives investors in a qualified rural fund triple the five-year basis step-up other qualifying Opportunity Fund investors earn, on money placed after the end of 2026. GAO says the revised incentive also lowers the substantial-improvement threshold for qualifying property in wholly rural zones from 100% to 50% of adjusted basis, generally excluding land, and that some fund representatives believed the change would make existing buildings easier to redevelop.

Congress created the program in the 2017 tax law and made it permanent in July 2025. Texas told communities to put forward sites where private investment could realistically proceed within two to four years, and counted local incentives, workforce initiatives and affordable-housing commitments among its selection considerations. Abbott nominated 605 tracts in 105 counties this round, down from 628 tracts in 145 counties in 2018. The 2025 law directs Treasury to report how much is invested, which industries receive it, and the related employment and housing figures.