Development

From concept through to completion and beyond, Reed Smith provides trusted legal guidance at every stage of real estate development.

Real estate development projects are inherently diverse and complex and involve a range of issues at every stage, from acquisition, planning and permitting/entitlement, tax planning, and debt and equity financing, to construction, leasing, and eventual disposal.

Our real estate development lawyers understand and are leading practitioners in many real estate asset classes. We have teams around the world who regularly successfully execute energy (including renewable energy, conventional generation, and energy storage and transmission), hospitality, industrial, office building, and other commercial projects. Each asset class is unique, and our lawyers have a deep understanding of the legal, regulatory, and commercial considerations that are unique to each of them.  

Our experienced lawyers represent a broad variety of global and geographically local clients that include developers, sponsors, finance providers, investors, REITs, private equity firms, and other stakeholders active in real estate development. We are well attuned to the commercial considerations across each perspective and prioritize the successful delivery of our clients’ commercial objectives throughout the real estate development process. 

With sustainability on the minds of many developers, our lawyers help developers incorporate energy efficiency and improve safety in new construction and redevelopment projects. We are at the cutting edge of employing the latest AI products to drive efficiency and accuracy and improve the overall value and accessibility of our legal services.

We recognize that real estate development presents both opportunity and risk, and our lawyers support clients to pursue the former and navigate the latter with confidence.  

“Reed Smith has a deep bench of talented attorneys who have particular strength in large-scale residential, retail and commercial developments. The team maintains a fine reputation for its expertise in significant transit-oriented projects including public-private partnerships, as well as real estate disputes. It is highly regarded for its wealth of experience in land use and zoning work. The firm counts housing associations, investors and developers as part of its diverse client base.”

Chambers USA

“Reed Smith’s practitioners stand out for their responsiveness, their ease at explaining issues and their commercial approach to legal matters.”

Chambers UK, London - Construction: Non-contentious

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