Real Estate

Full-Spectrum Real Estate Experience

With attorneys throughout the East Coast, members of the Real Estate Practice Group handle zoning, development, redevelopment, financing, selling and/or leasing matters from the earliest stage of development through the disposition of the finished project – a transformation that requires full land-use and transactional capacity.

Our attorneys have appeared before hundreds of zoning and planning authorities, and have helped developers, buyers, sellers, operators, tenants, and lenders negotiate projects with sophisticated structures and delicate environmental considerations. To keep projects moving forward, we have helped lenders and debtors work out settlements and dealt with construction disputes. We have written and proposed ordinances tailored to meet the creative nuances of complex multi-or mixed-use development projects and we have coordinated multi-state transactions for the disposition or acquisition of multiple properties in a single transaction.

Knowledge of a Rapidly Changing Regulatory Environment

Attorneys in the Real Estate Practice Group are active in real estate-related bar associations and in numerous trade groups, such as:

• National Association of Industrial and Office Properties
• International Council of Shopping Centers
• National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts
• Pension Real Estate Association
• CREW Network
• Various regional homebuilders associations
• Corporate Real Estate Network
• Urban Land Institute
• Zell/Lurie Real Estate Center

This hands-on industry interaction gives our real estate team a deep knowledge of issues that affect everyday transactions.

Land Use: Zoning, Land Development and Permitting

Attorneys in the Land Use and Eminent Domain practice handle legal issues regarding regulatory compliance and community concerns in real estate transactions at the municipal, county and state levels in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, the District of Columbia, Virginia and New York, including:

• Zoning approvals and rezoning
• Subdivision and land development approvals
• Appeals
• Permit applications
• Ordinance challenges

We represent a wide range of developers, particularly in challenging projects such as siting:

• Hospitals and medical centers
• School campuses and other educational facilities
• Pipelines and energy infrastructure
• Telecommunications infrastructure
• New communities – single family, multi-family and mixed use projects in special watersheds or on environmentally sensitive sites

We work frequently with planning professionals, engineers, architects, environmental consultants, brokers and appraisers to deal with complex planning and zoning issues to help bring a project to life. In addition, our geographic reach enables us to provide seamless service to clients with multi-state operations.

Eminent Domain

Saul Ewing's eminent domain attorneys handle legal issues associated with the exercise of condemnation authority by governmental entities and private entities with the power to condemn. Our attorneys represent condemners and developers in projects such as:

• Parcel consolidation for large public projects
• Siting schools and educational facilities
• Right-of-way acquisition for federally regulated natural gas pipelines
• Siting facilities for public utilities
• Acquisition by municipalities of rights-of-way needed for road expansion or utility line installation

Our attorneys represent condemnees in some instances such as:

• Objecting to condemnations intended to stop development by private landowners
• Objecting to government regulation which has the effect of condemnation

Our attorneys have experience with preliminary injunctions, preliminary objections, and trials at the possession stage, as well as state boards of view and federal commissions and jury and non-jury trials at the compensation stage.