Real Property Development and Redevelopment: Brownfields

For more than 20 years, even before the inception of contemporary voluntary cleanup programs, Sonnenschein lawyers have worked with state and local regulators to implement environmentally responsible clean-ups to facilitate property redevelopment at industrial and commercial properties. These projects have included those in California, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Washington and elsewhere. Many of these projects involve the challenges of creating site-specific, derived clean-up standards and securing and implementing institutionalized controls and/or engineered barriers. The projects are varied and diverse, reflecting unique histories of contamination, local geology and land use, and short- and long-term business objectives. The following is a sampling of our experience, capability and creativity;

• We provided environmental counsel in connection with the sale and remediation of one of the largest undeveloped tracts of land in New York City. The Staten Island waterfront parcel was sold for redevelopment, with the firm’s advice and assistance on the complex negotiations and dealings with prospective purchasers, regulators, consultants, and insurance underwriters to effectuate a cost-effective and protective Brownfield strategy and wetland preservation.
• While the Director of the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, a partner in our Environmental Practice reformed the State's Site Remediation Program, creating a streamlined, risk-based, voluntary clean-up program heralded as one of the most facile programs of its type in the nation by the regulated community.
• Another partner pioneered creation of the Washington State Cleanup Law, including prospective purchaser agreements and the Voluntary Cleanup Program.
• We assisted in creating a public-private partnership, with the assistance of federal regulators, to remediate an abandoned landfill for reuse as deluxe housing units. We coordinated efforts to implement a state-approved remedial plan, transfer landfill areas to public ownership for "greenspace," and prepare the property for residential development.
• Working with our Real Estate and Affordable Housing lawyers, we have been instrumental in a number of residential redevelopment projects involving city-owned property. We assist our developer clients with remedial action plans, remediation agreements and soil management plans. Our most recent project involves the construction of modern low- and mid-rise mixed-income buildings, which will replace high-rise tenement buildings.
• We were integrally involved in developing a voluntary clean-up strategy and implementing the remedial activities for a portfolio of industrial urban properties for residential and commercial reuse. We assisted in the creation of a joint venture structure for cleaning and redeveloping the properties, financing and insurance support, day-to-day coordination of on-site remediation contractors, and liaison with state and local regulators to secure "no further remediation" letters.
• Our lawyers coordinated the sale of an office complex overlying an area of recently discovered groundwater contamination. Our efforts included securing the cooperative involvement of U.S. EPA in New York state to issue one of the first-of-its-kind early-issued prospective purchaser agreements, which conferred liability protection on the purchaser without creating additional responsibility for the seller of the properties.
• One of our lawyers has managed environmental due diligence for six major high-rises in downtown Seattle, either as part of development, refinancing or repurchase.
• Our lawyers completed a large project involving clean-up and redevelopment of Chicago’s prime Lincoln Park property, formerly owned by the City. Representing a partnership of retail, residential and senior housing developers, we helped our client identify and secure $500,000 in publicly available clean-up funds and tax credits. Our lawyers also devised access agreements with adjacent homeowners for off-site sampling.
• Sonnenschein represented a manufacturing company in the sale of property in Tucson, Ariz. that had been the former site of waste lagoons. The transaction was successfully completed by subdividing the property to allow for the immediate sale of the unimpacted portion of the property and simultaneously providing for the transfer of title to the same purchaser of the sub-divided portion upon the issuance of a "no further action" determination by the Arizona DEQ.
• One of our partners has participated in the redevelopment of a dozen former gas station locations with soil and groundwater contamination into branch banks, fast-food services, grocery and other retail stores.
• We frequently advise shopping center and mall development property managers and/or owners concerning measures needed to obtain site closure approval, UST closure approval or other forms of state assurance.

Many of these projects came to us from lawyers in other Sonnenschein practice areas, in order to get the deals completed appropriately. In many transactions, we are brought in as special environmental counsel by our clients.

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