Wyatt Kendall

Wyatt serves as co-partner-in-charge of the Taft Atlanta office and focuses his practice on brownfield redevelopment and urban renewal projects. He routinely advises local and national industrial, multi-family, mixed-use, and retail clients on the acquisition, development, disposition, management, and financing of properties with significant environmental issues, as well as properties in urban and industrial areas across the country. He also represents corporate and lending clients on environmental issues in the context of a host of corporate transactions, including mergers and acquisitions. In this capacity, Wyatt undertakes and oversees environmental due diligence and regulatory processes, works with consultants, engineers, and other environmental professionals to evaluate and quantify potential liabilities, and drafts and negotiates agreements and environmental insurance policies to effectively allocate the risk of environmental liabilities between the parties.

• Advise clients on regulatory, environmental, and development issues on urban redevelopment projects across the country, including in, among others, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.
• Led environmental due diligence efforts on multiple national real estate portfolio deals and commercial property acquisitions in, among other states, California, Florida, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, and Texas.
• Serve as national environmental counsel for a national industrial warehouse developer, with projects in, among other states, as California, Florida, Illinois, and Texas.
• Representation of a national REIT on environmental issues in connection with a $3+ billion merger involving more than 40 West Coast properties.
• Serve as national environmental counsel for a national multifamily developer, with experience on projects in every major metropolitan area including Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami, Nashville, and San Francisco.
• 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.
• Lead environmental counsel on a multimillion waterfront development in New Jersey.
• Representation of a multi-year redevelopment of Turner Field (former Olympic Stadium/former Atlanta Braves Ballpark) and surrounding parking lots.
• Successfully taken dozens of sites through the Georgia Brownfield Program and obtained for clients millions of dollars in Brownfield Tax Abatements.
• Represented multiple clients in pursuing risk-based regulatory closure under the Georgia Voluntary Remediation Program.
• Advised client in the acquisition of a former chemical plant in Georgia.
• Advised client on the sale of several wood treating facilities throughout the Southeast.
• Negotiated dozens of environmental insurance policies for sites across the country.
• Represented traditional banks and other lenders in addressing environmental issues in connection with distressed assets and OREO holdings.
• Drafted and negotiated a wide range of agreements, including access agreements, purchase and sale agreements, indemnity agreements, access agreements, and remediation/voluntary cleanup agreements.