Real Estate, Environmental and Construction Law

The Real Estate, Environmental and Construction Law Department of Tannenbaum Helpern Syracuse & Hirschtritt LLP consists of practice groups specializing in these three areas of the law. The Department provides an interdisciplinary approach to the broad practice of real estate law, and facilitates the exchange of information regarding developing trends, laws, standards and transactions among members of the group. Utilizing this approach, we are able to advance THSH’s credo of providing practical solutions to all legal issues confronting our clients.

General Real Estate Practice

THSH’s general real estate practice consists of experienced attorneys with broad based technical skills and, equally important, a practical orientation regarding business advice, the structuring of transactions, contracts, and negotiations. Our clients include institutional lenders, prominent national and regional developers and investors (including “hedge” and “private equity” funds and public and private “REITs”), national and regional retail operators and owners and operators of multifamily and commercial properties.

Our attorneys are regularly engaged in commercial and residential development, representing developers in assemblages, acquisitions, leasing, construction and permanent financing and tenants and landlords in “big box” leasing transactions and commercial office leasing projects. Our attorneys also have been extensively engaged in workouts, loan restructurings and asset acquisitions on behalf of lenders and borrowers, and in matters involving condominiums and cooperative housing corporations. We have the luxury of drawing upon the expertise of our Corporate, Tax, ERISA, Financial Services and Creditors’ Rights groups in structuring transactions.

We also have a significant real estate litigation practice that has been involved in several leading and precedent setting cases involving such areas as workouts, foreclosures, contracts of sale, condominium and co-op sponsor defaults, flip tax regulations and “Yellowstone Injunctions.”  Our real estate attorneys actively work with our litigation attorneys to augment litigation teams with substantive real estate experience.

Environmental Practice

Our environmental law attorneys provide our clients with the full range of environmental legal services, offering ready, expert and “hands-on” advice concerning environmental issues arising out of complex corporate and real estate transactions and development projects.  They work closely with our real estate attorneys on transactions involving environmental issues in order to provide seamless service to our clients.

Our environmental practice is national in scope, but we maintain local relationships and knowledge, which permits us to obtain the proper result efficiently. We have the knowledge, experience, and capacity to handle multi-property, multi-jurisdictional transactions involving hundreds of sites and, at times, billions of dollars. We also represent clients in matters concerning regulatory compliance, remediation and related response actions, permitting and other approvals, and litigation of environmental claims.

Our environmental attorneys stay current on developments in environmental law and technology, and maintain a prominent position in such emerging markets as the redevelopment of Brownfields, co-generation of power, and carbon credits. We have administered Brownfields projects from inception to completion in several states, to the satisfaction of both our clients and the regulators overseeing such programs. Our real estate attorneys have provided additional expertise by assisting our environmental attorneys in the technical aspects of the acquisition, financing, tenanting and sale of Brownfield developments and co-generation projects.

Construction Practice

The inclusion of construction attorneys in our expanded Real Estate, Environmental and Construction Law Department completes our interdisciplinary approach to the representation of the real estate industry. 

Our construction attorneys have extensive experience representing owners, lenders, engineering and design firms, and contractors and subcontractors in all facets of the construction process. We have negotiated a wide variety of construction contracts, utilizing professional industry form as well as more user-friendly forms which can be easily be adapted to particular transactions.
Our attorneys also counsel our clients on business issues, such as pricing, scheduling and project delivery methods, and have extensive litigation expertise, handling construction disputes before mediation and arbitration panels and state and federal courts.

Consistent with our long standing practice of staying in the forefront of issues facing the real estate industry, our construction attorneys have become expert in the representation of owners and developers seeking to construct or renovate buildings in accordance with “green” standards. We work regularly with, and counsel clients regarding, the evolving LEED rating system established by the U.S. Green Building Council, and prepare and negotiate contracts and specifications required to obtain LEED certification. THSH serves as general counsel to the New York Chapter of the USGBC.