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Steven L. Elbaum chairs our firm's Metro New York Real Estate practice and is a member of our firm's Real Estate + Development practice group. He concentrates his practice on commercial real estate law. He represents corporations, developers, municipalities, and international lending institutions in acquisitions, dispositions, financing, leasing, and development.

Acquisitions + Dispositions

Steven has more than 25 years of experience handling acquisitions and sales of real property and related real estate financing. He assists clients with structuring, negotiating, drafting, and closing real estate acquisitions, dispositions, and loans. He also counsels public and private clients and municipalities in economic development incentive transactions.

Leasing

Steven handles office, industrial, retail and build-to-suit leases throughout the U.S. and Canada. He has represented several companies in the development and leasing of their corporate headquarters, including priceline.com, FactSet, Diaego, Noble Energy, Vineyard Vines, Design Within Reach, and Unilever’s North America headquarters. He represents several landlords in the New York area in their office and retail leasing.

Development

Steven advises clients, including developers and municipalities, in connection with mixed use, retail, and commercial developments. He represented a public-private partnership in the redevelopment of the travel plazas along the Connecticut Turnpike and Merritt Parkway. He represented several municipalities in urban redevelopment projects, including the acquisition and redevelopment of a multi-parcel brownfield area that was converted into a 10,000-seat indoor arena and a professional baseball stadium, revitalizing that city's urban core. He also served on a task force that implemented one of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's first brownfield programs. He currently represents a public REIT in the ground-up development of an office tower.

Steven was nominated in 2021 by Governor Lamont to the Board of Directors of the Connecticut Health and Educational Facilities Authority (CHEFA), the largest bond issuing authority in the State, providing financing assistance to secondary and higher educational institutions, health care providers and other non-profits.

Steven served as a law clerk to Chief Justice Thomas F. Fay of the Supreme Court of Rhode Island and is a former lobbyist registered with the State of Connecticut.

  • Boston University School of Law (Juris Doctor)
    • Probate Law Journal, Editor in Chief
  • Wesleyan University (Bachelors)
    • B.A., Modern European History

  • State of Connecticut
  • U.S. District Court, District of Connecticut

Connecticut Bar Foundation, James W. Cooper Fellow, 2013

Robinson+Cole Community Service Award Recipient, 2013

AV® Preeminent™ Peer Review Rated in Martindale-Hubbell™ in the areas of Real Estate, Finance, and Commercial Leasing (Martindale-Hubbell Peer Review Ratings is a trademark. AV Preeminent is a certification mark of Reed Elsevier Properties, Inc.)

Ranked in Chambers USA: America's Leading Lawyers for Business in the State of Connecticut in the area of Real Estate, with a Band 1 designation in 2026

Selected to the Top 50 Connecticut Super Lawyers list for 2017

Selected to the Connecticut Super Lawyers list from 2007 to 2021 and 2025

Selected by his peers for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America© in the area of Real Estate Law since 2007

Named in Moffly Media's 2024, 2023 and 2021 "Top Lawyers in Fairfield County" lists in the area of Real Estate

CHEFA (CT Health and Educational Facilities Authority)
Member, Board of Directors (2021 - Current)

Real Estate Finance Association
Chapter Board Member, Past President

CoreNet Global

American Bar Association

National Association of Industrial and Office Properties

Boys and Girls Club of Stamford
Past Member, Board of Directors
Past President of Board of Directors

Trumbull Zoning Board of Appeals
Board of Directors, Chair (2017 - Current)