Todd S. Davis is Hemisphere’s Chief Executive Officer, and is widely recognized as one of the nation’s leading brownfield redevelopment experts and environmental lawyers. Mr. Davis focuses his work on all aspects of redeveloping contaminated property and the environmental aspects of real estate transactions. In this role, Mr. Davis has actively acquired numerous sites for Hemisphere’s portfolio and provided strategic advice in hundreds of transactions, including a number of the nation’s largest and most sophisticated brownfield redevelopments. These transactions typically have involved participating in relevant state voluntary cleanup programs, executing complex redevelopment strategies, coordinating applicable financing alternatives, negotiating public incentives, and the manuscripting and placement of pertinent environmental insurance products.
Projects Mr. Davis has led have been the subject of business case studies by the Harvard University Graduate School of Design and Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. He has lectured annually at The Kellogg School of Management from 2014-2018. He also has served as a strategic consultant to a major university, significant public and private companies, as well as a number of government entities regarding brownfield redevelopment issues. Mr. Davis was tapped to lead the legal track at “Brownfields University,” at U.S. EPA’s National Brownfield Conferences during 2023 in Detroit and during 2022 in Oklahoma City. Mr. Davis was selected to serve as the Chair of the Real Estate Committee for the Surplus Properties Roundtable (“SPR”), a trade group including the nation’s largest brownfield property owners. In connection with his redevelopment work over the past two decades, Mr. Davis was asked to speak at the Mayor’s Roundtable Plenary Session at U.S. EPA’s 2019 National Brownfields Conference in Los Angeles and was featured in a U.S. EPA film commemorating brownfield redevelopment achievements for Brownfields 2015, U.S. EPA’s 20th Anniversary National Brownfield Conference. In 2013, Mr. Davis was selected by the American Bar Association’s (ABA’s) Section of Environment, Energy and Resources (SEER) to serve as the key point of contact for any media inquiries involving brownfields. In 2017, Mr. Davis also was selected to chair the ABA SEER’s Government and Private Sector Innovation Committee focusing on federal environmental regulatory reform to facilitate brownfield redevelopment and expedite contaminated property cleanups. In 2019, Mr. Davis was selected to Co-Chair the ABA’s “Master Class on Complex Environmental Liability Resolution,” which was awarded “Best Program” of 2018-2019 by ABA SEER.
Mr. Davis has been broadly published in treatises, periodicals and newspapers. He is the principal author of an extensive 1,100-page treatise on redeveloping brownfield sites nationally, entitled Brownfields: A Comprehensive Guide to Property (3rd Ed. 2010), published by the American Bar Association. This treatise has been one of the most successful books published by ABA SEER. Mr. Davis served on the editorial board of Brownfield News, the brownfield industry’s leading business publication, and wrote a regular column for Brownfield News featuring practical advice on brownfield development transactions called “Ask the Expert.” He is a contributing author to Turning Brownfields Into Greenbacks (1998), a book published by the Urban Land Institute (ULI) highlighting successful brownfields redevelopment strategies. Mr. Davis authored a chapter on brownfields redevelopment in multiple editions of Environmental Aspects of Real Estate and Commercial Transactions (4th Ed. ABA 2011). Further, Mr. Davis authored a chapter in two editions of Implementing Institutional Controls at Brownfields and Other Contaminated Sites, a book published by the ABA (2nd Ed. ABA 2012). He also is an author of The Underground Storage Tank Manual (1st Ed. 1994), a comprehensive publication on Ohio underground storage tank law Redeveloping Contaminated.
Based on his scholarly works and practical experience, Mr. Davis has been a featured speaker at numerous national forums on brownfield redevelopment including multiple U.S. EPA National Brownfield Conferences, national conferences of the American Bar Association’s Environmental Section, various ULI Redevelopment and Reuse Council Meetings and The White House Conference on Sustainable Development. He has testified before Congress on brownfield legislation and at various U.S. EPA working groups on brownfield issues. Mr. Davis spoke on the “Ask the Expert” panel at the 2022 Ohio Brownfield Conference. Mr. Davis served as Secretary of the Board of Directors for the National Brownfield Association, the industry’s principal trade organization
Mr. Davis was a member of the Urban Land Institute’s Environmental Committee and ULI’s Redevelopment and Reuse Committee. During 2017, Mr. Davis served as a mentor in ULI’s Cleveland District Partnership Forum, a six-month program focused on counseling young real estate professionals. He served as a Vice Chairman of the ABA’s Environmental Transactions and Brownfields Committee (ETAB). On a local level, he participated in the initial Rulemaking Committee for Ohio’s Voluntary Action Program, as well as the Five-Year Rule Review Committee, and was a member of the Ohio Brownfields Finance Partnership. Mr. Davis also served on the Leadership Board of The Cleveland Clinic Foundation’s Children’s Hospital. Based on his years of scholarship and service, Mr. Davis was appointed to the Fellows of the American Bar Association, a global honorary society of attorneys, limited to 1% in each jurisdiction, whose careers have demonstrated outstanding dedication to the highest principles of the legal profession and to the welfare of their communities.
He received his bachelor of business administration from the University of Michigan, with Distinction, and his law degree from The George Washington University, with Honors. Mr. Davis also was formerly a partner in Benesch, Friedlander, Coplan & Aronoff LLP and was Co-Chairman of the firm’s Environmental Practice Group.
