Brownfield Contaminated Sites
Alston & Bird’s environmental attorneys regularly advise clients in connection with the purchase, sale, remediation and development of environmentally impaired properties, including facilitating the cleanup and/or redevelopment of brownfield sites into productive commercial and residential uses. We have extensive experience with brownfield development nationwide. We have handled projects in most states, most recently including Alabama, California, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, South Carolina, North Carolina and Tennessee. We are experts at navigating clients through the complex interplay among regulators, lenders, contractors, insurers and other stakeholders, and we know the science and regulatory requirements that drive site-specific investigation and cleanup standards, as well as the importance of developing and achieving timely, cost-effective site closure strategies for our clients.
Brownfield Experience
- Serves as California environmental counsel encompassing diligence and transactional support in the acquisition of commercial and retail investment properties.
- Represent a consortium of responsible parties in connection with CA DTSC cleanup to address VOC and hexavalent chromium contamination in the vicinity of water supply wells.
- California environmental counsel in the acquisition and repositioning of various retail centers, including the purchase of Plaza El Segundo and the related acquisition, remediation and development of the adjacent Point parcels.
- Serves as California environmental counsel encompassing diligence and transactional support in the acquisition of commercial and retail investment properties.
- Obtained first-of-its-kind regulatory approval for a large, single-family residential project at a former oil field disposal site, utilizing state-of-the-art barrier and sub-slab depressurization technology to mitigate potential vapor intrusion concerns and ensure long-term public health based on stringent risk-based safety standards.
- Obtained brownfield protection for one of the largest multi-family residential developer in the United States, for the redevelopment of a former stove works foundry, located in a historically industrial section of Atlanta, into residential lofts.
- Obtained limitations of liability in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Florida for a North Carolina based Real Estate Investment and Development Company specializing in the development of retail malls throughout the Southeastern United States.
- Obtained brownfield protection in rural Georgia for a Bank client that was purchasing the assets of a failed bank from the FDIC. The property on which the failed bank’s main branch was located had been contaminated by historic dry-cleaners and arsenic-based fertilizers.
Other Relevant Experience
- Represents ongoing facility operations and remediation under oversight of the California DTSC and the San Francisco RWQCB. Conducted a detailed environmental audit, and through strategic negotiations achieved a very favorable settlement without filing of a suit.
- Represent a consortium of responsible parties in connection with CA DTSC cleanup to address VOC and hexavalent chromium contamination in the vicinity of water supply wells.
- Counsel for an ongoing groundwater remediation project at the Los Angeles International Airport under RWQCB oversight.
- Represents ongoing facility operations and remediation under oversight of the California DTSC and the San Francisco RWQCB. Conducted a detailed environmental audit, and through strategic negotiations achieved a very favorable settlement without filing of a suit.
- Assisted a prospective purchaser of contaminated property in Michigan to obtain limitation from liability for the contamination by conducting a Baseline Environmental Assessment and developing a Due Care Plan.
- Advised a brick products manufacturer on a voluntary remediation of one of the company’s century old brick manufacturing facilities located on the Chattahoochee River.
- Counseling on the remediation of a historic ink manufacturing and printing factory under the Ohio Voluntary Action Program.
- Obtained a Certificate of Completion under the Virginia Voluntary Remediation Act, for the remediation of an historic facility that manufactured equipment for the mining, steel, and transportation industries.
- Serve as environmental counsel to national manufacturer client in its cleanup and redevelopment of former facilities in Alabama, Michigan, North Carolina, and Iowa. Our responsibilities include working with U.S. EPA and or state environmental agencies to ensure that local brownfield requirements are met to allow reuse of properties for commercial purposes, or in one case, establishment of a public park.
- Serve as environmental counsel to Fortune 50 chemical company in its remediation and redevelopment of a former fertilizer plant near Memphis, Tennessee, including working with Tennessee Department of Environment Conservation to meet applicable state Superfund and brownfield requirements.