Mark A. Gershon is the vice chair of the national Real Estate Development group and chair of the Chicago Real Estate Development group. He has extensive experience in commercial, energy, industrial, retail and residential development, governmental approvals, conveyance and financing. For more than 24 years he has successfully obtained land use, zoning and other local, state and federal governmental, and regulatory approvals, negotiated and documented a wide range of projects including:
- Business and industrial parks
- Shopping centers
- Wind farms and other renewable energy projects and facilities
- Peak and base load energy plants
- Transmission and utility projects
- Residential and mixed use developments
- Remediation and Brownfields
- Specialty projects such as corporate relocations, outdoor amphitheaters and radio towers
Mr. Gershon’s clients range from Fortune 50 and international companies to mid-size corporations, and from national and regional real estate and energy companies to small family held businesses and municipalities.
He has facilitated the establishment of public-private partnerships, obtained governmental incentives including tax increment financing and sales tax rebate agreements, and brought together governmental, business and community organizations to enable development of blighted, environmentally and financially challenged, and previously undevelopable, projects ranging from former refinery and other brownfield sites to deteriorating downtown areas to foreclosed office and commercial projects.
Additionally, Mr. Gershon has been directly involved in many of the largest regional industrial and office parks, and energy projects in the Chicago metropolitan area, as well as numerous retail, hotel, entertainment and residential venues. In difficult economic times he has worked with governmental entities, lenders, developers and property owners to restructure transactional and governmental approvals to establish and implement strategy enabling successful development of challenged projects.
Mr. Gershon has extensive experience in property analysis and coordination of all aspects of public and private project development from site investigation, code analysis and project strategy, negotiation of conveyance, acquisition, leasing, joint venture and finance documentation to coordination of project teams including developers, architects, contractors, land planners, environmental, sound and other land use consultants. In projects ranging from infill development in established metropolitan areas to regional wind farms covering tens of thousands of acres, Mr. Gershon has successfully brought together the project teams and strategy necessary to address community and governmental concerns while satisfying the demands of governmental regulatory agencies and lenders.