Overview
The Developers Advisory Panel provided expert consultation from Brownfield transaction professionals to owners of Brownfield sites on how to make their sites more marketable and identify potential deal killers. The panel consisted of developers, seasoned environmental consultants, and insurance professionals who reviewed these projects and provide their valuable advice in turns of 20 minutes each. The panel also featured professional site selectors who worked with municipalities and site owners to critique their vacant industrial properties—focusing on the strengths and weaknesses of the sites, the adequacy and relevance of information known about the properties, and possible industrial re-uses for these sites.
Feature
Industrial Reuse Support
As many communities around the country have lost their employers and their industrial facilities in the economic downturn, many areas are looking for ways to streamline the redevelopment process and get industrial sites back to work.
The Industrial Reuse Support will provide support to owners of industrial sites, including private and public sector entities that want to redevelop their site with new industrial uses.
Consultations
We are no longer booking consultations.
Meet the Consultants
Leah Yasenchak- Principal at Brownfield Redevelopment Solutions, Inc.
Leah B. Yasenchak received her Bachelor and Master of Arts degrees in Public Administration of Environmental Policy from The American University, and her Master of Environmental Science degree from Johns Hopkins University.
Ms. Yasenchak is a Principal at Brownfield Redevelopment Solutions, a consulting group which assists public and private entities in moving from brownfield site identification to redevelopment, including identifying and obtaining funding, managing projects, and working with regulatory agencies to satisfy cleanup requirements.
Prior to that, Ms. Yasenchak spent twelve years working for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in various program offices. This includes four years on a detail assignment as the Brownfields Coordinator for the City of Trenton. In this position she assisted the City in identifying, funding, investigating, remediating, and redeveloping numerous Trenton brownfield sites.
Michele Christina- Principal at Brownfield Redevelopment Solutions, Inc.
Ms. Christina spent over 10 years in the environmental consulting field, working predominantly on pre-remedial assessments of federal and state superfund sites. She then jumped to the public sector side of the fence to tackle brownfield sites at the City of Trenton, New Jersey. While working for the Department of Housing and Economic Development, Ms. Christina first served in the capacity of the City’s Brownfields Coordinator and, later, as the City’s Director of the Division of Economic Development.
Currently, Ms. Christina is co-owner of Brownfield Redevelopment Solutions, Inc. (BRS), a consulting group which assists their clientele with the intricacies of redeveloping contaminated properties. BRS provides a suite of highly specialized brownfield support services necessary for public sector clients to manage brownfield programs. BRS deals solely with inventorying, planning, managing, providing community outreach and education, obtaining funding and implementing brownfield redevelopment projects for public sector clients. No other environmental consulting firm focuses solely on public sector brownfield support and redevelopment needs like BRS. BRS has a 100% award rate for eligible brownfield grant applications submitted to USEPA. In the past five years, BRS personnel have prepared applications resulting in almost $5 million in USEPA assessment, clean-up, and revolving loan fund awards.
George Vallone- President of Hoboken Brownstone Company
George Vallone graduated Gettysburg College with a BA in Accounting in 1976 and Fordham University with an MBA in International Finance in 1978. He has been an urban developer for over 29 years. He has had the same partner (Daniel Gans) that entire time and they have been friends since they met in college 37 years ago.
They bought their first brownstone in 1980 for $20,000 and converted it into the first condominium ever sold out in Hoboken, NJ. He has renovated brownstones, row houses, a 100 year old historic bank building, and has built mid-rise and hi-rise condominiums in Hoboken. He has built over 1,000 units of affordable housing for several non-profit church affiliated and community based groups and for-profit housing corporations in Jersey City, Newark, Patterson and Trenton. His company specializes in large mixed-use Brownfield redevelopment projects.
His company purchased the Maxwell House Coffee Factory, a 24 acre site on the Hoboken waterfront, in 1999 for $18M. After obtaining all City, County, State, and Federal zoning and environmental approvals, at an additional cost of $7M, he sold the fully approved project to a joint venture comprised of a public and private homebuilding company for $76M in January of 2004.
He is currently working on a 438 unit mid-rise project on 7 acres in the Jersey Avenue Redevelopment Zone in downtown Jersey City. His company is working on incorporating into this project the state-of-the-art high performance building science technologies of a Mass Wall Building Enclosure, Balanced Ventilation with Energy Recovery, and Alternative Energy.
He is a Past President of the NJ Institute of Multi-Family Housing, Past President of the NJ Builder’s Association (NJBA) Metropolitan Chapter and a Lifetime Member of the NJBA State Board of Directors. He was Vice-Chairmen of the NJBA’s PAC from 1986 to 1993 and is a member of the Redevelopment Committee.
He is currently President of Our House, Inc. a non-profit group that builds, owns, and operates 29 group homes and provides job training for the developmentally disabled. He has held a NJ Real Estate Broker’s license since 1986. He currently sits on the Advisory Board of the Rutgers Graduate School of Business Finance. He has Guest Lectured for the past 20 years at Rutgers, NJIT, NYU, and is also a regular speaker at the IMN (Information Management Network), Builder, and Realtor conferences and travels all over the country speaking on Redevelopment, real estate finance, and Green Building topics.
George Vallone was just appointed to the 15 member NJ State Housing Commission by Senate President Richard Codey.
Bruce Amos- Principal at Clean Slate, LLC
Mr. Amos is experienced in environmental risk management, contaminated property reuse and alternative and renewable energy use. Previous experience includes site selection, installation and commissioning of alternative energy projects for General Electric and Ogden Environmental and Energy and environmental insurance underwriting for XL Insurance.
Steven Werner- President of Project Navigator
Steven I. Werner is the President of Project Navigator – Atlantic, the east coast operating subsidiary of Project Navigator, Ltd, a national environmental engineering/consulting firm specializing in the management of complex, multi-party environmental matters. Mr. Werner has broad national and international experience advising senior managers about environmental risk and in the development of strategies that reduce that risk to the greatest extent possible. As a member of the Economic Redevelopment Forum Panel Mr. Werner will focus on the use of various tools – including insurance, engineering and institutional controls – to manage and reduce the risks to human health and the environment associated with the reuse of environmentally challenged properties
Steve Collins- Executive Vice President of Environmental Liability Transfer
Mr. Collins has acquired 59 Brownfield sites in 18 states worth more than $35 million for ELT. He helped redevelop several sites including negotiation of state and local incentives. The value of these sites will exceed $60 million after cleanup.
With 32 years of local government, economic development, and real estate education and experience, Mr. Collins has the knowledge and experience to evaluate and develop Brownfield sites so they benefit ELT as well as the Seller and community.
To achieve success, Brownfield development requires trust and cooperation among the buyer, seller, consultants and regulators. Steve’s record of success confirms his knowledge and experience can build productive partnerships and positive outcomes.
Contact him to discuss opportunities at scollins@eltransfer.com or 314-835-2835.
Ileen Gladstone- Vice President of GEI Consultants, Inc.
Ileen Gladstone is a Vice President and Principal at GEI Consultants, Inc. a nationally recognized Geotechnical, Environmental, and Water Resources consulting engineering firm with its corporate office in Boston, Massachusetts, and sixteen offices nationwide. Ms. Gladstone is Massachusetts Licensed Site Professional (LSP), Professional Engineer (P.E.) and Leadership in Energy & Environemental Design Accredited Professional (LEED AP). Ms. Gladstone is specialized in the assessment cleanup and development of contaminated properties. She has more than twenty five years of experience in environmental engineering, site investigation and cleanup. She has successfully managed cleanup of sites during construction, and is a published expert in incorporating remediation into construction projects and brownfields redevelopment.
Michael Williams- Brownfields Program Specialist at Business Oregon
Currently manages Industrial Lands Certification for the state of Oregon. Experienced in consulting, brokerage, planning. Adjunct Professor at Portland State University.
Douglas MacCourt- Partner at Ater Wynne LLP
Doug MacCourt is a partner and Co-Chair of the Sustainable Practices Advisory Group at Ater Wynne LLP’s Portland, Oregon office. Doug specializes in environmental law and regulation, energy development, land use and government affairs. He represents industry, local government and tribal clients in development, permitting, purchase and sale of contaminated properties and businesses with environmental liabilities. Doug developed and managed the City of Portland’s EPA-funded Brownfield Programs throughout the 1990’s. He is a member of the US German Bilateral Working Group for sustainable reuse of brownfields, and serves on the Board of Directors for the National Association of Local Government Environmental Professionals (NALGEP) based in Washington, DC. Doug is a co-author of the Oregon Environmental Law Deskbook, published by the Oregon State Bar Association, and is listed in Chambers USA: America's Leading Lawyers for Business, and Best Lawyers in America, Native American and Natural Resources law.
John E. Vanderslice, P.G., LSRP- Environmental Alliance, Inc. (NJ Operations)
John E. Vanderslice, P.G., LSRP is a Senior Project Director at Environmental Alliance, Inc. with over 25 years of experience in the performance and direction of environmental projects. Mr. Vanderslice was a graduate student at Rutgers University where he also served as a teaching assistant in the Geology and Engineering Departments. He has extensive Brownfields experience with investigation and remediation projects associated with landfill closure and post-closure compliance monitoring, dredged material, underground storage tank closures, urban redevelopment and municipal Brownfield redevelopment sites. Mr. Vanderslice has also worked with various municipal, county and State agencies to develop Brownfield site inventories and prepare funding applications.
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