Partner
1675 Broadway, Suite 2300
Denver, Colorado 80202
Telephone: (303) 825-7000
Fax: (303) 825-7005
pjessen@kaplankirsch.com

Ms. Jessen's practice emphasizes regulatory compliance and transactional counseling that involves environmental, land use and municipal law. Ms. Jessen's experience includes the range of contaminated property redevelopment issues, including environmental due diligence, negotiating environmental provisions of purchase and sale agreements and environmental insurance policies, several mineral interests, and professional service and construction contracting. Ms. Jessen has advised and represented clients before regulatory agencies regarding remedy selection, cleanup standards, institutional controls, redevelopment and community relations activities under voluntary cleanup agreements and CERCLA consent orders. She has drafted ordinances governing solid waste management, development standards for areas of statewide interest, and signage. She also has drafted comments to regulatory agencies regarding wetlands permits and endangered species issues and prepared briefs and other pleadings in environmental and natural resource litigation and mediation proceedings.

Ms. Jessen's clients have included municipalities and quasi-governmental entities as well as private developers and other private entities involved in complex remediation and development projects. Current clients include: redevelopers of the former Stapleton International Airport, Lowry Range, former Fitzsimons Army Medical Center, Union Station, and Gates Rubber Company site; the Denver Convention Center Hotel Authority; the Cherry Creek North Business Improvement District; Atlanta Beltline, Inc.; a private national Brownfields developer; a private developer of a 300 MW Colorado wind farm; a private company specializing in concrete recycling; a private wind farm investor; and a national non-profit construction materials recycling association. Former clients include: an environmental consulting firm specializing in guaranteed, fixed-price remediation, a municipality conducting a landfill closure and golf-course redevelopment in Nevada, and the principal potentially responsible party in a series of Superfund cleanups in Montana. Ms. Jessen speaks and publishes frequently on contaminated property redevelopment issues.

Recent Seminars and Publications

    Publications
  • "Mixing Surface Development with Oil and Gas Operations-Part II," The Colorado Lawyer (June 2005)
  • "Mixing Surface Development with Oil and Gas Operations -- Part I," The Colorado Lawyer (May 2005)
  • "Surface Developers Must Plan," Colorado Real Estate Journal (March 2 - 15, 2005 and March 16 - April 5, 2005)
  • "Managing the Risks of Environmental Contamination in Redevelopment Projects," The Metropolitan Corporate Counsel (April 2002)

    Seminars
  • Roundtable Participant, "Brownfield Legislation: Where Is It Going and How Will It Affect You?", THE BIG DEAL: NBA Brownfields 2007, October 16-17, 2007
  • Panelist, "Eight (Not-so) Simple Steps to Redevelopment of 'Special Needs' Properties", Hampton Roads Association for Commercial Real Estate Luncheon, August 16, 2007
  • Panelist, "The Redevelopment of Stapleton Airport", ABA Section of Taxation and Section of Real Property, Probate and Trust Law, 2006 Joint Fall CLE Meeting, October 19 - 21, 2006
  • Presenter, CBA Real Estate Section, "What Real Estate Practitioners Need to Know About the New Colorado Asbestos Regulations", September 7, 2006
  • Presenter, CBA 2006 Real Estate Symposium, "Mixing Surface Development with Oil and Gas Operations", July 20 - 22, 2006
  • Presenter, CLE International, Real Estate Development, "Mixing Surface Use with Oil and Gas Development", April 10, 2006
  • Presenter, Brownfields 2005 Conference, "Taking Off With Community Vision: The Redevelopment of Stapleton", November 2 - 4, 2005
  • Presenter, "Development Considerations", CLE Conference, Environmental Concerns in the Sale and Redevelopment of Contaminated Property in Colorado, June 16, 2004
  • Presenter "The Challenges of Airfield Conversions - Lessons Learned", NAID, An Association of Defense Communities, 2004 Annual Conference

Education and Clerkships

  • A.B., cum laude, Princeton University, 1987
  • J.D., Columbia University School of Law, 1994
  • Judicial Law Clerk, now-Chief Justice Mary J. Mullarkey, Colorado Supreme Court

Bar Admissions

  • Colorado

Professional and Civic Activities

  • Downtown Denver Annual Awards Jury (2008)
  • Board of Directors, Center for ReSource Conservation (2008)
  • Executive Committee member and Policy and Legislative Subcommittee Co-Chair, Colorado Chapter of the National Brownfields Association (2006 - Present)
  • Businesses United for Denver Public Schools Committee and School Partners Subcommittee Co-Chair (2005 - Present)
  • Emerging Leaders Program, Downtown Denver Partnership (2004)
  • Committee for the Urban Farm at Stapleton January 2004 fundraising event
  • 2002 Smart Growth Task Force convened by the Wirth Chair in Environmental and Community Development Policy, Institute for Policy Research & Implementation, Graduate School of Public Affairs, University of Colorado at Denver