Areas of Practice: Real Estate Transactions

We have counseled clients in numerous real estate transactions, including acquisitions and divestitures in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts. We review and evaluate extensive environmental documentation and work with environmental consultants to provide meaningful advice about contractual allocation of risk. Our attorneys have represented and supported clients seeking to undertake Brownfields acquisition and clean-up. We provide strategic planning advice to clients in positioning property in the real estate market.

Among the transactions in which we have participated are:

• The only former Class 2 Site listed on the New York Inactive Hazardous Waste Disposal Site Registry to be approved to participate in the New York State Brownfields Clean-up Program. We assisted in the Brownfields Clean-up Program application and approval process, and supported relations with state and local government officials and interested community and environmental groups  We provided counsel on all aspects of site remediation, including Brownfields documentation and compliance and bidding and contractor oversight.

• The sale of former industrial facilities in metropolitan New York to commercial and residential housing developers.

• The sale of a contaminated property on Long Island that was designated by the Environmental Protection Agency as a Brownfields Assessment Demonstration Pilot. The pilot program was so successful that, in early 1999, former Vice President Al Gore designated the area as one of the first Brownfields Showcase Communities. On behalf of our client, we negotiated both an agreement to sell the property to the local municipality and a consent decree to settle our client's past and future Superfund liability.

• The sale of a $170 million portfolio by one of Long Island's largest commercial real estate developers, to a real estate investment trust (REIT).

• A REIT's acquisition of properties in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and several portfolios in the midwest. These included a $49.2 million acquisition involving 29 properties totaling approximately 1.5 million square feet, plus an additional 43 acres of developable land.

• Counsel and legal representation to several clients pursuing Brownsfields clean-up, including  application to the program and assessment of costs of remedial obligations.

• Environmental counsel to numerous lenders in connection with loans secured by interests in potentially contaminated real estate.

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