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Brownfields

Members of the firm's Environmental and Natural Resources Practice Group have represented many purchasers, sellers, lenders and equity investors in transactions involving contaminated properties throughout the United States. Our attorneys assisted the Virginia General Assembly with several brownfields initiatives. In addition, we played a significant role in developing brownfields policy in the state of Georgia through our representation of a large utility client on the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce Brownfields Issue Group, which worked to develop and implement programs and incentives to bring environmentally impacted properties in Georgia back into productive use. We assisted in the drafting and passage of brownfields legislation in Georgia, establishment of an insurance preferred-provider program, and educated decision makers in Georgia on brownfields through the development of seminars and workshops.

Representative engagements include:

• Helping a national fast food retailer obtain Prospective Purchaser Agreement and Consent Order absolving client of all liability prior to purchase of large Tennessee property impacted by dry cleaning solvent contamination;
• Assisting a local cable television franchisee in developing a lease and purchase option agreement for a closed General Electric plant in Virginia that had been publicly stigmatized by solvent contamination in soils and groundwater. This arrangement was very advantageous to both parties; it allowed the firm's client to use the property without assuming ownership and liability, while generating income for the property owner and maintaining the prospect of the sale of the property in the future;
• Representing prospective lessee who wished to sublease and operate a Savannah River port facility that was in bankruptcy and subject to Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and Georgia Superfund. In a cutting-edge agreement, we persuaded the lessor's trustee in bankruptcy, the Georgia Ports Authority (the landowner), and the Georgia Environmental Protection Division (EPD), to allow the port facility to be put back into productive use by our client and agree that our client should not be held liable for pre-existing contamination. Rent paid by our client was dedicated towards clean up. This was the first time in Georgia where the state was willing to relax joint and several liability to induce a prospective owner or tenant to make productive use of a contaminated site;
• Helping a large national retailer obtain Prospective Purchaser Agreements from VDEQ at several Virginia sites;
• Representing a real estate developer in negotiations with potentially responsible parties (PRPs), the EPA and the Georgia EPD on proposed mixed-use redevelopment of the Atlanta Forge & Foundry Superfund site, located adjacent to the Atlantic Station development (known as the Atlantic Steel Project XL site);
• Assisting a Virginia county with management of the cleanup and redevelopment of contaminated riverfront property in a historic town, while structuring property transaction to leave any residual liability on other parties;
• Assisting real estate developer in purchase and financing of a large formerly industrial property near downtown Atlanta, and assisted the client in obtaining environmental insurance on the property.