Real Estate & Land Use Law

Real estate clients need attorneys to not only be exceptional counsel, but real-world problem solvers. This requires a unique combination of negotiating skills, political awareness, and legal prowess – all measured against the two levers of value + results.

Our real estate attorneys represent clients throughout the full cycle of a real estate transaction, taking a holistic approach to real estate matters. We get deals done.

Our approach is client-centric, personal, creative and effective. We learn your business, your tolerance to risk, your needs and goals in the short and long terms. Our clients benefit from direct access to senior counsel, and our business model promotes a collaborative approach to ensure we drive value to each touchpoint of the real estate life cycle.

Buying and Selling

Value + Results

Commercial real estate is a small community of lenders, buyers and sellers. This is true whether it is an international market such as NYC, or a smaller town in Long Island. Having the right relationships, providing the right expertise at the right time to the right people matters: this is the value of relationships and experience.

Our senior attorneys’ complementary areas of expertise, combined with our firm’s collaborative approach to service, enables remarkable depth to our representation. We successfully represent clients in the purchase and sale of property, commercial leasing, borrowing, lending, syndications, private placements, real estate construction, development, zoning, subdivision approval and related environmental matters.

We represent numerous developers and investors in the acquisition of commercial property and multifamily housing, and actively negotiate associated institutional financing to protect our clients’ real estate interests. The firm also helps developers come together with investors through private placements and syndications.

Leasing and Financing

Creative + Effective

Creativity takes your real estate project the last mile – and it’s all about the last mile.  The attorneys of Smith, Buss & Jacobs are responsible for more than one first-of-kind project financing, including the $600 million refinancing of Co-Op City in the Bronx through HUD for which the firm created a new set of documentation to enable the mortgage.

This is the power of effecting creative solutions and tailoring lease or loan documents to match the needs of each client. We represent both landlords and tenants in the negotiation and execution of commercial lease terms for office and long and short-term retail spaces, as well as financing involving securitized lending, mezzanine loans and bridge loans.

We counsel commercial borrowers in negotiating financing commitments with institutional lenders for both portfolio and conduit loans. We handle major construction loans, acquisition loans, and major sales and purchases of all types of commercial real estate, multi-family shopping centers and industrial buildings.

Development

Local Strategy

We know how local governments work and how to move a development effectively through the process. Our representation as developers’ attorneys encompasses due diligence investigations; site plan approval and rezoning applications; special permits, variances, and designations and alterations of landmarked buildings; public and private financing; land use appraisals and entitlements and construction financing and permitting; and air rights and utilities transactions.

If situations result in litigation, our attorneys have broad litigation experience, including civil litigation in state and federal courts, at both the trial and appellate levels, on behalf of clients facing potential liability for complex land use issues.

Construction

Diverse Experience

Our construction attorneys assist clients from the initial planning and delivery of a construction project, in the negotiation and drafting of contracts, through construction and construction administration, to project close-out and the resolution of disputes.

Our experience is rooted in a diverse client base, which includes developers, public and private owners, designers and consultants, general contractors, construction managers, subcontractors, suppliers and lenders.

Land Use & Zoning

The Power of Relationships

Land use regulation is always local in nature, highly process-dependent, and highly contingent upon the particular laws, nuances and political climate where the project is located. Our exceptional strengths in municipal law delivers tremendous value to our land use & zoning clients. Our land use attorneys regularly collaborate with our local governments in Westchester and Bronx counties to achieve our clients’ goals. Our local knowledge, coupled with established working relationships with local regulators, is backed by decades of proven experience.

This unmatched background in municipal law enables our attorneys to provide a remarkable degree of foresight, allowing our advisory to anticipate scenarios and set up the projects for success – better. We provide property owners with a thorough understanding of all regulatory issues affecting their use of property and of the opportunities available to enhance a site’s development potential, and guide clients through the requisite legal processes needed to achieve those enhancements.