Robinson & Cole served as special counsel under the direction of the New Jersey Attorney General's office to the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission (formerly known as the Hackensack Meadowlands Development Commission), an agency of the State of New Jersey which owns, or will acquire, an area in excess of 1,000 acres in Northern New Jersey in close proximity to Manhattan, in connection with the negotiation and implementation of a development agreement, ground lease and related documents providing for the closure of six active or dormant landfills, and redevelopment as four 18-hole golf courses with related club house, resort, and hotel facilities, 1,300-plus time share units and an office park.

The project is the largest proposed brownfield redevelopment in the history of New Jersey. The development arrangement negotiated by Robinson & Cole and set forth in the Development Agreement and related documents, for which we were the principal drafters, included complex provisions for the acquisition, by taking or purchase, of the additional land required for the project, provisions for the closure of landfills, detailed procedures for the review and approval of development plans, security arrangements for the developer’s undertakings, and criteria and procedures for the further transfer of portions of the project.