Turning Development Opportunities into Profitable Reality
For project owners, sponsors, developers, and investors, selecting a prospective site is just the beginning. They must obtain a long line of permissions, comply with multiple levels of laws and regulations, create goodwill with the local community, and deliver compelling support before governmental bodies. These processes can be lengthy and complicated, and they require experienced legal representation that’s ready to go the distance. With Smith, Gambrell & Russell at your side, you’ll have the support required to realize the full extent of your vision – from a standalone project to a nationwide portfolio – and maximize the value of your property.
Our Capabilities
Whether you’re breaking new ground with digital infrastructure, such as data centers or underground fiber optic networks, or planning to develop mixed-use, residential, industrial, or office properties, we help you take your project from concept to reality. Chief legal officers, general counsel, and developers as well as property owners, landlords, and investors look to us to bring projects large and small to life – and with speed to market.
As a full-service practice, we pair regulatory, transactional, and litigation capabilities to provide clients with solutions for any contingency in the land use, zoning, and planning/entitlement process. Our team will see your projects through from start to finish, with every need handled in-house. We can seal the deal on everything from applications for re-zonings, variances, special use permits, planned developments, and other approvals to incentives, development agreements, and subdivision and plat approvals.
While our deep bench of litigators has won many courtroom battles on behalf of project stakeholders, litigation is never our first choice. Instead, we provide initial zoning feasibility studies and community action plans to preempt issues that might arise during the development lifecycle. If governmental approval can’t be obtained, however, we will assertively litigate any issue, including those involving land use, eminent domain, the Telecommunications Act, the Fair Housing Act, or the Clean Water Act.
Our Approach
Our goal is simple: to help our clients obtain the most flexible, resilient governmental approvals that allow for the highest value of their projects. Unlike other high-volume practices, we plan for the long term, and we’re adept at finding opportunities within regulatory frameworks that others may overlook. Our lawyers believe in understanding your unique selling proposition and industry realities, then structuring the development process as flexibly as we can – so you can get the green light now and add value to your property later, without having to go back to the drawing board.
Recognized as leaders in the field for decades, we’ve developed close relationships with key decision-makers in the planning and development process – including land use planning staff, municipal lawyers, and development authorities – on both the administrative and legal sides. We also investigate sites all over the country and have secured favorable ordinance modifications or adoptions in numerous states. This experience also leaves us well-equipped to foster strong community relations. If a community concern threatens to delay your project, we’ll present you with an action plan to resolve tensions and build consensus.
Our Credentials
No project is too large, complex, or innovative for the SGR team. We have worked on some of the biggest projects ever developed in the state of Georgia, including cutting-edge manufacturing, data center campuses, mall redevelopment, mixed-use projects, and significant standalone residential projects. Our resume also includes data center and dark fiber projects throughout the United States, as well as Illinois’ first colocation data center facility, Chicago’s first dark fiber conduit path use agreement, iconic mixed-use and high-rise Chicago developments, and significant industrial and logistics projects across Chicagoland.
Our practice has been recognized by the legal industry’s top guides, such as Chambers USA, Legal 500, and Best Lawyers®. So have our lawyers. One partner has repeatedly been named Best Lawyers’® “Lawyer of the Year” in land use and zoning in Georgia, reflecting our work on many of the state’s most significant properties, while another has been Chambers-ranked for more than a decade.
We bring real-world development experience in addition to accolades. Our team is staffed by former city planners, civil engineers, and in-house counsel for a multinational corporation and the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority (GRTA), among others. Because we’ve been on the other side of the process, we know exactly how administrative and regulatory decisions are made – and what’s needed to direct them in your favor.
