Danielle Meltzer Cassel
Shareholder
T: +1 (312) 609 7962
F: +1 (312) 609 5005
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Chicago
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Danielle Meltzer Cassel is a Shareholder in the Real Estate group focusing on transactional real estate, land use and public incentives law. Since 1996, her transactional and land use work has covered a broad spectrum of property types, including urban and suburban retail and office developments, hotels, hospitals, schools and universities, industrial parks and manufacturing facilities, power plants, billboard signage, and single-family and multifamily residential properties.
Ms. Cassel has represented purchasers and sellers, lessors and lessees, providers of debt and equity, developers, project operators and end users in transactions ranging from the beginning phases of due diligence, formation of joint ventures, design and construction to the ongoing operations, disposition, redevelopment and refinancing of existing properties.
Her land use and development work has included numerous planned developments and subdivisions in both urban and suburban contexts, annexations and disconnections, map amendments, text amendments, special uses, variations, permits and licensing, establishment of legal-nonconformity status, recapture agreements, landmarks and historic preservation, utility and transportation issues, billboard, high-rise and streetfront signage, impact fee and subsidy negotiations and preparation of easement and operating covenants.
Ms. Cassel has been recognized as an "up and coming" lawyer in Chambers USA in the Illinois Real Estate category, noting her "phenomenal brain and terrific client skills." She was selected by her peers from 2007 to 2012 for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America. Ms. Cassel was included in the elite "Leading Lawyers" list for the Real Estate and Construction—Land Use/Zoning category in the Legal 500 United States guide. In addition, Ms. Cassel has received a Peer Rating in Martindale-Hubbell. In 2011, Ms. Cassel was named one of the Leading Illinois Commercial Real Estate Lawyers by Leading Lawyers Network.
Ms. Cassel co-taught seminars in zoning and land use law at both Northwestern University Law School and The University of Chicago Law School (1999 to 2008). She also has lectured on land use law and public incentive issues for the Urban Land Institute, Illinois Institute of Continuing Legal Education, American Bar Association, International Council of Shopping Centers, The Law Project (formerly Community Economic Development Law Project), The University of Chicago Law School Real Estate Law Society and The University of Chicago Law School Institute for Justice Clinic on Entrepreneurship.
Ms. Cassel was a member of Leadership Greater Chicago’s Class of 2006, and received a "Tomorrow’s Leaders Today" award from Public Allies Chicago and a Special Recognition Award from the Partnership to End Homelessness. She currently serves on the boards of the Primo Center for Women and Children, The Law Project, the Yale Club of Chicago, and Business and Professional People for the Public Interest (BPI). For several years, Ms. Cassel also served on the advisory board of Public Allies Chicago and on the board of WomanCraft, Inc., a subsidiary of Deborah’s Place, Chicago’s largest provider of shelter and services to formerly homeless women.
Prior to joining Vedder Price, Ms. Cassel spent 13 years in the Real Estate Department at DLA Piper US LLP, and prior to beginning her legal career she worked, studied and volunteered extensively in several fields related to inner-city development. Her three most significant research projects included multiyear studies of the 1990 National Affordable Housing Act; lending collaborations for Community Reinvestment Act credit among traditional mortgage lenders and neighborhood-based institutions; and bridge loans facilitating non-syndicated Low-Income Housing Tax Credit equity investments.
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- J.D., cum laude, Harvard University, 1996
- M.A., John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, 1996
- B.A., summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa; Yale University, 1992
- Board of Directors, Primo Center for Women and Children
- Advisory Board, The Law Project
- Board of Directors, Yale Club of Chicago
- Board of Directors, Business and Professional People for the Public Interest (BPI)
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