Fox Rothschild LLP continues to grow its West Coast offices by welcoming veteran real estate and land use attorney Kenneth A. Kecskes as a partner in the firm’s San Francisco office.
Kecskes focuses his practice on real estate transactions, land development and property investment deals, counseling clients on acquisition, disposition, construction, entitlement, leasing, joint venture, entity formation and financing matters. He works on matters throughout the state and is expected to divide his time between the firm’s Los Angeles and San Francisco offices.
“The addition of Ken positions Fox to handle some of the most sophisticated real estate transactions on the West Coast,” said Keith I. Chrestionson, managing partner of the firm’s San Francisco office. “He possesses a solid reputation for partnering with clients and leading them through the full life cycle of complex real estate projects and development. Ken’s background is attractive to both Fox’s existing client base across the U.S. and to our strategy of growing our footprint on the West Coast.”
Kecskes has developed a strategic understanding of the development of large scale master-planned, mixed-use communities, having worked on large scale development projects in Alameda, Los Angeles, Monterey, Placer, San Diego, San Benito and Santa Clara counties. He has assisted the developers of mixed use planned communities along the full life cycle of their development, from initial acquisition, land use entitlement, and construction to the sale of lands to merchant home builders and retail and commercial developers.
Kecskes advises clients through the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) process and negotiates development agreements that balance the needs of public entities with reasonable solutions that encourage private investment. He uses his knowledge of environmental and land use planning laws to counsel clients on entitlement strategies, including general plan amendments, specific plans, zoning amendments and subdivision map processing. Kecskes has also assisted clients in compliance with green building laws and regulations, including the mandatory and optional provisions of California’s green building law, CalGreen.
Kecskes has implemented programs that have been instrumental in the public and private financing of infrastructure in a new mixed-use community, including road, potable and reclaimed water systems and other utilities, and he has negotiated the financing and provision of schools and affordable housing. He has structured development transactions with the full range of public finance tools, including impact fees, community facilities districts, county service areas, community services districts, and similar special taxing districts.
Ken’s experience crosses a broad array of product types. He represents health care and life sciences companies with real estate development, leasing and construction matters. He counsels private equity funds and real estate developers in joint venture, limited liability company and partnership structuring, operating agreements and equity participation. Kecskes has also counsels clients in real estate secured loan transactions, including acquisition, development, permanent, bridge, mixed-collateral and mezzanine loans. Additionally, Kecskes advises both public and private owners and managers of hotel properties, and he has counseled clients on hospitality construction and rehabilitation projects, property and transient occupancy tax matters, environmental matters, restaurant leasing, parking and service contracts, and hotel management agreements.
Kecskes is a full private member of The Urban Land Institute and has been appointed to one of the Urban Land Institute’s national product councils, the Community Development Council, Silver flight. He is also a member of the National Association of Home Builders’ Legal Action Network for Development Strategies (LANDS). Ken is a member of the American Bar Association and its sections on real estate, environment and business law. In 2011, Ken was named to The Legal 500 in the areas of Real Estate & Construction and Real Estate.
Ken has been active in pro bono work in the Bay Area, receiving the Wiley M. Manuel Award from the State Bar of California for his work with Legal Aid of Marin. He has also worked actively in transitioning persons in poverty, serving as Outside Director of a San Rafael chapter of The Open Table, a national network of faith based organizations in the U.S. that assists people in poverty.
Kecskes earned his J.D., cum laude, from The University of San Diego School of Law, and his B.A. from the University of California, Los Angeles.
