Bruce Keyes

Experience

Bruce Keyes is a business lawyer, dividing his practice between Foley & Lardner’s Real Estate and Environmental Practices, with a focus on complicated urban development projects, project incentives, and New Market Tax Credits. He has practiced extensively in the areas of brownfields and public-private partnerships and serves as lead counsel for the Kenosha Innovation Neighborhood redevelopment of the 107-acre former Chrysler facility in “uptown” Kenosha, Wisconsin. He served as lead counsel for the development and financing of Discovery World, Ltd., the Milwaukee Public Museum’s US$240 million relocation project, and the development of Ballpark Commons stadium and entertainment district (which is the largest development in Wisconsin to be located on a closed landfill). He has led New Market Tax Credit financings for private sector companies, including UP Paper, Michels Corporation, Super Steel, and Winsert, and capably negotiated local, state, and federal financial incentives when they were needed to ensure the success of a project.

Bruce’s recent successes include a cost recovery settlement under RCRA for historic property contamination and several ongoing complex cleanup actions of client properties by prior responsible parties under CERCLA. He has played a leading role in a number of nonprofit initiatives, including the development of the Hank Aaron State Trail and the co-founding of Bublr Bikes, Milwaukee’s nonprofit bikeshare operator. He has played a founding/leading role in Menomonee Valley Partners, Inc. and was tasked by the Mayor of Milwaukee to jump-start the Harbor District, Inc., working to redevelop several of the largest waterfront brownfield tracts in the state of Wisconsin.

His practice often involves the use of complex and highly regulated local, state, and federal funding through the U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration, Federal Transit Administration, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the Department of Treasury Community Development Financial Institutions Fund.