Michael Sklaroff

Michael Sklaroff is the former Chair of the Real Estate Department. Mr. Sklaroff's practice encompasses real estate development (corporate headquarters, office buildings, industrial facilities, port facilities, power centers, family entertainment centers, hotels, new town centers, condominium and other residential complexes, and cultural facilities); real property tax and eminent domain (pharmaceutical research and development facilities, power generating stations, refineries and fuel depots, corporate headquarters, manufacturing facilities, transportation facilities, rail corridors, multifamily housing, development parcels, outdoor advertising and telecommunications facilities, and shopping centers); zoning and land use (television, radio broadcasting, outdoor advertising and telecommunications, office, retail, commercial, suburban residential, parking, industrial parks, hospitals, hotels, museums, condominiums, university facilities, and urban mixed-use development); and serving as counsel to cultural institutions (orchestra, museum, and medical associations).

As deputy executive director of the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority in the early 1970s, Mr. Sklaroff managed six departments comprising 170 employees.

Mr. Sklaroff started the movement to save the Dream Garden, the Maxfield Parrish/Louis C. Tiffany mural in Philadelphia's Curtis Building. He helped build the Sister Cities relationship between Philadelphia and Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, and represented a Russian physics institute in the first licensing agreement to a U.S. company of gyrotron technology used in fusion research.

Representative Matters

• Helped bring the first civil rights action in federal court to open the suburbs to multifamily housing and enforce the landmark zoning decision in Girsh Appeal 434 Pa. 237 (1970), and was part of the team that obtained site-specific relief, now a central part of Pennsylvania's land-use jurisprudence
• Served as expert witness on the effect of the integration clause in an agreement of sale for a major commercial real estate transaction in 1726 Cherry Street Partnership v. Bell Atlantic Properties, Inc., Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia, January Term, 1990, No. 2023, affirmed, 439 Pa. Super. 141, 653 A.2d 663 (1995), appeal denied 653 A.2d 663 (Pa. 1995)
• Argued for the municipality in The Piper Group, Inc. v. Bedminster Twp. Bd. of Supervisors, 30 A.3d 1083, 2011 Pa. LEXIS 2333 (Pa. 2011), where the Pennsylvania Supreme Court upheld an agricultural land preservation ordinance against a developer's curative amendment challenge and for the first time interpreted the 1988 provisions of the Municipalities Planning Code dealing with the municipal cure and the extent of site-specific relief

Other cases of note are:

• Arter v. Philadelphia Zoning Board of Adjustment, 916 A.2d 1222 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2007), appeal denied, 934 A.2d 75 (Pa. 2007) (funeral home and crematorium not permitted in historic Greenwood Cemetery by variance, as accessory use or as modernization of legal nonconforming use)
• One Meridian Partners, LLP v. Philadelphia Zoning Board of Adjustment, 867 A.2d 706 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2005) (reversed 300 percent bulk variance for high-rise condominium development)
• Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority v. Board of Revision of Taxes, 574 Pa. 707, 833 A.2d 710 (2003) (Commonwealth agency not entitled to real estate tax immunity for property leased to commercial tenants)
• SCRUB v. Keystone Outdoor Advertising, No. 131 C.D. 2001, March 15, 2002, appeal denied, Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, No. 225 EAL 2002, March 30, 2004 (sustained variances for eight outdoor advertising signs in least restricted industrial zone)
• PECO Energy v. Board of Assessment Appeals, 138 Montg. Co. L.R. Part II 237 (2001) (taxing authorities outside the jurisdiction may not intervene in local tax appeals under Public Utility Realty Tax Act amendments)
• School District of Philadelphia v. Tax Review Board to the Use of Realen Gateway Development Associates, L.P., 696 A.2d 906 (Pa. Cmwlth. 1997) (use and occupancy tax may not be imposed on public/private joint venture parking garage)
• DeBotton v. Marple Twp., 689 F.Supp. 477 (E.D. Pa. 1988) (substantive due process claim stated in case arising out of exclusionary zoning of mobile home parks under the Civil Rights Act of 1871)
• Ezy Parks v. Larson, 499 Pa. 615 (1982) (unlawful bidding of PennDOT parking lot leases stricken)
• Sargo, II, Inc. v. City of Philadelphia, 488 F.Supp. 1045 (E.D. Pa. 1980) (condominium conversion moratorium)
• Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection v. Precision Tube Co., Inc., 358 A.2d 137 (Pa. Cmwlth. 1976) (PennDOT has burden of proving compliance with Article I, Section 27 -- the Environmental Bill of Rights -- in citizen's challenge to water obstruction permits in Wissahickon Creek)
• Resident Advisory Board v. Tate, 329 F. Supp. 427 (E.D. Pa., 1971) (fair housing claim on behalf of public housing tenants)

Judicial Clerkships

Hon. Joseph S. Lord III, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania

Professional Activities

American College of Real Estate Lawyers (ACREL), Member

College of Physicians of Philadelphia, Fellow and Trustee

Counselors of Real Estate, Member

Development Workshop, Inc., Chair

Philadelphia Bar Association, Founding Chair, Real Property Section
Philadelphia Bar Association, Former Chair, Committee on Condemnation and Appraisals

Philadelphia Historical Commission, Chair, September 2002 to February 2008
(Member, 1996 to 2008)

Taught technology transfer, real property, and corporate law in Russia under programs sponsored by USIA and USAID

Recognition & Accomplishments

Chambers USA: America's Leading Lawyers for Business, real estate law, and real estate: zoning/land use law, highest ranking (band one) 2003-2013

The Best Lawyers in America, real estate law, real estate litigation, 1993-2013

Named Best Lawyers 2012 Philadelphia Litigation – Real Estate Lawyer of the Year

The Legal 500 US, real estate and construction – real estate, 2011-2012 

The International Who's Who of Real Estate Lawyers 2011

Publications

"Economic Force Majeure: The Conceivable and the Foreseeable," a chapter in The ACREL Papers—Fall 2011, American Law Institute – American Bar Association, Fall 2011

Speaking Engagements

Course presenter and author, "Economic Force Majeure: The 'Conceivable' May Not Be 'Foreseeable'," Creative Structures for Dynamic Markets: The Rebirth of Opportunities in the City of Brotherly Love, ACREL program, Philadelphia, October 22, 2011

"Shoring up the Delaware River Waterfront," interview with "Radio Times with Marty Moss-Coane" on WHYY, Philadelphia's NPR station, June 23, 2011

Planner, Chair, Moderator, Pennsylvania Bar Institute's programs "The Law of Historic Preservation" and "The Science of Land Use"

University of Pennsylvania Law School (LL.B. 1967, magna cum laude)
Editor, University of Pennsylvania Law Review; Member, Order of the Coif

Columbia College (A.B. 1964)

Pennsylvania