Gerald L. Pouncey Jr.

Gerald is Senior Counsel at Taft. Before its merger with Taft, he was the Chairman of Morris, Manning & Martin, LLP. His primary focus is the acquisition, disposition, and/or redevelopment of properties with significant environmental impact (including state and federal superfund sites), mergers, investments, economic incentives, and financing related to such properties, as well as the development and implementation of green energy technologies and strategies. He lectures nationally on these topics.

Gerald has led efforts in the permitting, financing, acquisition, redevelopment and regulatory closure of hundreds of industrial properties, mines and landfills throughout the United States including a former wood treating facility in South Florida, a former airplane manufacturing facility in New York, former Department of Defense facilities, several former automobile assembly facilities across the country, a former granite mine in Maryland, a former chrome ore smelting facility in South Carolina, a former oil field in California and numerous other similar projects. Among these projects is the Atlantic Station Redevelopment in Atlanta, which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recognized as the nation’s best Brownfield redevelopment.

• • Representation in a multi-year high-profile brownfield redevelopments, which includes a loan secured for a 200+ assemblage of properties with overlapping regulations by the EPA, negotiations with the EPA Headquarters and the EPA Region 4, and resolving environmental issues in connection with construction.
  • Representation of a multi-year redevelopment of Turner Field (former Olympic Stadium/former Atlanta Braves Ballpark) and surrounding parking lots. This $350+ million, 70+ acre redevelopment in the heart of Atlanta will include student housing, retail, restaurants, office space, hotels, medical office space, and parks.
  • Served as lead environmental counsel on the remediation and then the sale of the approximately 70-acre “Quarry Yards” site in the urban core of Atlanta, Georgia.
  • Served as National environmental counsel for The Hanover Company. Representation has included advising on contractual, risk-allocation, regulatory, wetland, redevelopment, and financing issues.
  • Served as nationwide environmental counsel to Branch Properties in connection with its acquisition, redevelopment, and disposition of properties located throughout the Southeast.
  • Served as lead environmental counsel for the owner of a 110-acre property located along Shipyard Creek in Charleston, South Carolina, and obtained its removal from the National Priorities List. The property contained the former Macalloy chromium ore smelting facility, which operated from 1941 to 1998 and is currently being regulated by the EPA and the South Carolina Department of Health & Environmental Control (DHEC).
  • Served as lead counsel for the Atlantic Station project, which is the nation’s largest brownfield redevelopment, and received EPA’s Phoenix Award as the Nation’s top Brownfield project.
  • Served as lead negotiator for locating the 1 billion dollar Toyo Tire facility in Georgia.
  • Served as environmental counsel to Jacoby Development in Jacoby’s acquisition of the former Ford Auto Assembly Plant in Hapeville, Georgia, a 130-acre Brownfield south of Atlanta, now home to the Porsche North America Headquarters.