Winstead PC announced the expansion of its real estate practice with the addition of two real estate development, entitlement-focused shareholders, one development planner, one development project manager, and their support team. The group will be led by Stephen (Steve) O. Drenner and work in Winstead’s Real Estate Development & Investments Practice Group in Austin and San Antonio.
Drenner will be joined by his team of entitlement professionals, including John P. Donisi, shareholder; Michele Haussmann, director of planning and development; Amanda Swor, project manager; Ashley Parsons, project manager; and Heather Kuhn, legal secretary. Drenner and his team were previously with Drenner & Golden, Stuart Wolff. LLP, a real estate-focused boutique firm with offices in Austin and San Antonio. The new group will serve clients in both Austin and San Antonio and the Central Texas region.
“This announcement represents a great moment for Winstead,” said Pete Winstead, firm founder and shareholder in the Austin Office. “We have developed a ‘go to real estate practice’ in other Winstead offices and we wanted to enhance our real estate capabilities to serve clients in the rapidly growing Austin-San Antonio corridor,” added Peyton Smith, the firm’s lateral hiring shareholder. “As a result of Steve’s group joining Winstead’s real estate practice, Winstead clients will benefit from the most reputable team of attorneys and professionals who handle entitlement issues in Central Texas.”
Drenner is known as the king of entitlements (municipal approvals) around and in the City of Austin, the City of San Antonio and other municipalities in Texas. He has developed a well respected and reputable entitlement team of former city planners who collectively help real estate developers clear regulatory hurdles. Drenner is uniquely experienced with municipal and county ordinances and state and federal laws that affect property rights. He has a proven track record of successful developer representation in all aspects of land use, zoning, variances, and entitlements, and his clients include H.E.B., Endeavor Real Estate Group, Stratus Properties, Phoenix Properties, Simon Properties, American Campus Communities, and Cousins Properties.
Drenner has devoted his entire career to real estate. He has been a name partner in two of his own Austin firms in the last 13 years and was a former partner at Jenkens and Gilchrist for 13 years, opening the firm’s Austin Office and serving as the Austin managing partner for three years. Drenner was the founding president of the Real Estate Council of Austin and he was named as one of the five top real estate lawyers in Texas by Texas Lawyer. In 2009, the Austin Business Journal awarded Drenner with the Lifetime Achievement Award for his work in real estate. He was the president of the Hill County Conservancy during 2007 and 2008, and he is a member of The Real Estate Council of Austin, the State Bar of Texas and the Austin Bar Association. Drenner received his J.D. from the University of Texas School of Law.
Donisi’s practice focuses on entitlement work and he is a registered lobbyist with a well known reputation for success in local government and legislative lobby efforts for his clients. Prior to law school, Donisi was special assistant to Governor Ann Richards for four years and then chief of staff to The Honorable Senator Rodney G. Ellis for two years. Following law school, Donisi became general counsel to the Jurisprudence Committee of the Texas Senate and was a partner at Bickerstaff, Heath, Smiley, Pollan, Kever & McDaniel prior to becoming a partner at Drenner & Golden Stuart Wolff.
Donisi is a graduate of Leadership Austin, a member of the American Bar Association, the State Bar of Texas, and the Austin Young Lawyers Association. He is also president-elect and a member of the board of directors for Envision Central Texas, and a board member of the Heritage Society of Austin. Donisi received his J.D. from the South Texas College of Law in 1999 and has been repeatedly named a Texas Rising Star and a Texas Super Lawyer.
Haussmann joins Winstead as director of planning and development, land use and entitlements. She is a registered lobbyist with the City of Austin and City of San Antonio. She has worked in the zoning and planning area of real estate development her entire career, previously working with the City of Austin Development Review and Inspection Department, and the City of San Marcos Planning and Development Services Department, before working as the director of planning and development at her previous firm.
Haussmann is on the board of directors of the Real Estate Council of Austin, a member of the Real Estate Council of San Antonio and the American Planning Association. She graduated from Texas State University, cum laude, with a major in urban and regional planning.
With the addition of Drenner and Donisi, Winstead has officially reached a total of 57 attorney hires for 2011, firm-wide, which also includes another strong real estate group hired earlier this year, the Bob Burton group in Austin. The Burton group is a well known real estate team who represents national, regional and local clients in the acquisition, development, operation and administration of residential and mixed use, condominium and master planned communities.
