By JODI SOKOLOWSKI
Buffalo Law Journal

Before a commercial development project reaches a zoning or municipal board, several professionals have come together to conceptualize the project, address its needs and anticipate problems.

At the outset, a development team is generally comprised of the developer, project manager or architect, legal counsel and a public-relations adviser. While the initial focus is on the owner's vision for the project, and the developer often has the final say, each team member's input is taken into consideration.

"All these people realize that it's not about them, it's about how we're going to do the best thing to make the project happen," said Earl Wells, president of E3 Communications Inc. "Everyone leaves their ego at the door."

Ciminelli Development Inc.'s top three priorities - making sure a concept fits into the neighborhood, makes economic sense and appeals to the owner or potential client - drive the team's discussions.

"The team is kind of an orchestra, and we're the conductor, making sure it all comes together," said G. Gail Edwards, chief operating officer.

By meeting on a weekly or bi-weekly basis, often virtually, the team stays on track by assigning duties and reporting back on completed tasks or issues that have come up.

"A lot of these projects are really moving targets from week to week," Wells said.

In order to have a comprehensive proposal before presenting it to the public, the team may conduct scientific surveys to determine whether an issue, such as economic development, is important to a community or collect feedback from the industry about what other projects worked or didn't work.

The next step is securing land - quietly, to keep competition in the dark, determining zoning and preparing for requirements such as an environmental review, explained Samuel Shapiro, a Kavinoky Cook LLP partner.

"You have to have confidence in what you're going to tell them, but you don't expose who you are," he said.

For example, when HealthNow, parent company of BlueCross BlueShield of Western New York, was preparing its plans, it used commercial real estate agency CB Richard Ellis as its liaison, explained spokesperson Karen Merkel-Liberatore. It also helps to have a politically connected person - BlueCross had former Erie County Executive Dennis Gorski, now the insurer's vice president of policy and representation, on its side - advocating for the project.

"If you assemble the right team that already has political contacts, it works," Shapiro said.

Talking to neighbors

While developers - and their lawyers - often keep quiet at the conceptual stage, more and more project teams are approaching the public early on, addressing concerns along the way instead of at the final stages.

"What matters to the community matters to the project," said Uniland Development Co. spokesperson Judi Griggs.

"There may be some developers who prefer to go it alone and be very secretive about it, but I think a full-team approach is more effective," said Steve Bell, Eric Mower & Associates senior counsel. "Developers have become much more savvy when it comes to bringing in all these team members almost from the start."

When Uniland faced opposition to the proposed Gates Circle condos, it retained the services of public-relations firm Travers Collins & Co. and Richard Moore, a Magavern Magavern Grimm LLP partner.

"The challenge was to see not where the loudest noise was, but where the quiet support was," Griggs said.

So before Uniland started planning its redevelopment of the Thaddeus J. Dulski Federal Office Building into a multi-use complex, now called Avant, and, on another recent project, adding to Canisius High School's campus, it proactively reached out to neighbors.

"We're not holding these meetings in hotel ballrooms, we're holding these in people's living rooms," Griggs said. "We don't want to make them come to us, we go to them."

Ciminelli said it did the same when building the Centerpointe Corporate Park, completed in 2002, on 63 acres of undeveloped land on the Williamsville-Amherst border and with the Colvin Woods Business Park, which is nearing completion.

"Sometimes when you open yourself up to listening, it makes for a better process all the way around," Ciminelli's Edwards said.

Compromising positions

Public-relations experts find it's best to make the process as transparent as possible so that citizens have all the information up front to make their own decisions.

Griggs, who has experience in crisis communications, said a project team can't assume that the community and the developer will have an adversarial relationship. Often, the rumor mill feeds speculation and anxiety among area residents that can lead to misunderstandings.

Once they get the information they're seeking about a project, opponents often end up becoming ambassadors to it, said Anne Duggan, Ciminelli Development's marketing and public-relations director.

Developers know they can't please all the people all the time, but they say they will try to accommodate citizens' requests by altering a project, perhaps adding more green space, increasing buffers such as berms or altering the facade. Ciminelli, for example, built a concession stand for the nearby Town of Tonawanda football field to address residents' concerns about the Colvin Woods project.

"Developers often compromise so the community can live with the development and so that it's not as intrusive," said Dennis Harkawik, a Jaeckle Fleischmann & Mugel LLP partner.

Shapiro compared the process to baking a cake.

"You may argue about the icing or if it's going to have raspberry filing," he said, "but you end up with a cake."