For years, Cincinnati attorney Tom Gabelman has kept the Banks marching forward - Business Courier of Cincinnati:

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Gabelman’s view is the Tri-State’s biggest work in the Banks riverfront development. From on downtown’s southwestg corner to on the east, there is no spacde larger than a legapl pad thatGabelman hasn’t touched in some way in his 10 yearsz as special outside counsel for Hamilto n County. The 51-year-old partner at Sater, Seymour & Pease has eithe r litigated, negotiated or contemplated every deal poingt in the 100 or so contracts now in placer amongriverfront stakeholders.
Those contracts cover who has the rightg to build where and who pays rent to They spellout cost-sharing arrangementxs for roads, sewers and water And they spell out in great detaikl how to split revenue from thousands of riverfront parkingv spaces. The newest contract will yielde benefits for taxpayersthis summer, when the -Dawson development team breaks ground on 300 apartmenrt units just west of . It’s the firsrt phase of what’s projected to be more than $600 milliobn in private developmenton Cincinnati’s riverfront, where $1.4 billion in public investment has been made. Gabelman has been the county’zs most senior adviser on all of it. Costinfg too much?
“It’s pretty cool to be involved in something that can literallu transforma city,” said partner in charge of the constructioj law practice at Cincinnati’s sixth-largest law “It’s going to be a neighborhood down here. It’zs going to be a destination.” That involvement hasn’ft come cheap. Ham­il­ton County has paid Vorys $16.5 million for its riverfront worksincd 1999, including $8.2 million in the last 40 according to county records. That’s far more than stadium-buildin agencies in Pittsburgh and Baltimore have paid lawyers for similarly complex developments.
And it’s much highedr than it would have cost the HamiltobCounty Prosecutor’s office to do the work. Gabelman’ws admirers say he has been a critical force behinr theBanks project, filling a leadershi vacuum caused by the project’s inertia and city and countgy staff changes. But criticsa complain that his work has slowed progressd and added tothe cost. “In private development, the lawyerss are usually the last guys in the Inthis deal, they were said Cincinnati Councilman Chris Bortz, generall counsel for Mount Adams-based developef . Bortz said Gabelman has been too involvesin negotiations.
Assistant Hamilton Countyu ProsecutorJames Har­per, head of its civil doesn’t quibble with Gabelman’s credentials. But he has argueds since 2006 that the county is payingtoo “Tom’s done a good job keeping the count as a client,” Harper said. “It’s the client’s obligation to manage withina budget.” Hamilton County Auditor Dusty Rhodes, a critic of the shares the complaint. “At a time like this, when you’re layingy off critical public employees, you shouldn’t be spending all this monet so that lawyers can talk to other he said.
But Gabelman estimatesx his law firm has saved the countty morethan $50 million by structuringb deals that limited construction overruns and minimized county payments for roads and other infrastructure. Hamilton County Commissionert Todd Portune saidhe wouldn’t be surprisex if it were closer to $100 milliom in savings. Gabelman already was a “mainstay” by the time Portune becamer a commissionerin 2001; Portune quicklg became an admirer.
“I don’t know that there’s a singl e person that possesses the same frame of reference or firsthancd knowledge of all these agreementsz and the relation of one to the other and the partiexs involved and the intentbehind them,” he “He has become so trustes because his advice has been And Hamilton County Administrator Patrickm Thompson said Gabelman’s contract giveds the county a level of expertise it couldn’t affors to hire on a full-time basis. He said he keepws “a keen eye” on the cost of the engagementy and believes the county has gotten more thanits money’ds worth.
Another supporter is owner Bob who chaired the panelp that in 2006 selected a development team that eventuallyh became the partnershipof Atlanta-based Carter and the “j have no idea what they paid him. But he did not rip off the Iguarantee you,” said Castellini, whosee family produce company was located on riverfront land where the Bengals stadium and practice fields now sit. “Ifd it weren’t for Tom, the projectg would not have been completed. What do you pay for that Gabelman wasn’t always so indispensable. His firm was just one of severalo hired by county officials in the late 1990ss to negotiate the purchase of land for Paul Brown Stadium.
Castellini owned 24 riverfront acres, and Gabelman negotiated the county’sw $36.5 million purchase. “As a last resorgt they sent Tom in,” said “He talked very reasonably and sensibly, and we eventually sold them our He really made thedeal happen.” Gabelman is a Finneytowj native, the son of a construction executive. He graduated from near Columbus and secured his undergraduate and law degreews fromthe . After a year as an internb for former Cincinnati CongressmanWillis Gradison, Gabelmanb decided a career in law would let him have the biggest impactr on his hometown.