Overview
Elise Batsel is a Shareholder and a member of the Firm's Board of Directors. She focuses her practice on land use, zoning, permitting, and transactional real estate.
Elise represents national and local developers and property owners before local, state, and federal governments on land use and land development issues. She has extensive experience representing clients in a broad range of matters involving variances, rezonings, permitting, licensing, comprehensive plan amendments, and entitlements for multi-family commercial, industrial, hotel, master planned and mixed-use projects. She also has experience with economic development projects, as well as Public-Private Partnerships, and advises clients regarding the redevelopment of environmentally impacted sites and environmental and wetland permitting issues.
In the Real Estate arena, Elise represents property owners and developers in real estate acquisitions, dispositions, and complex development agreements.
Representative Experience
- Represents the leading nonprofit health care provider in the Tampa Bay and West-Central Florida Regions in obtaining all development entitlements for a 773,582 sq. ft. medical facility, including a regional hospital, ambulatory care center, associated medical offices, and commercial outparcels.
- Represents one of the largest home furnishing and accent retailers in Florida in the development of a 1,200,000 sq. ft. warehousing, distribution and regional headquarters, including a regional showroom, for their central Florida operations in Plant City. Lead land use and environmental counsel, working with the City on the annexation of property into the City, comprehensive plan amendments, rezonings and environmental impact and permitting issues.
- Represents a full-service investment and development firm in obtaining a variety of land use approvals for a new mixed-use development located along the Gandy causeway. The waterfront development includes a mix of multi-family, townhome and commercial uses including 376 units, a dry storage marina with 245 slips, retail, restaurant and 225 accessory wet slips.
- Represents a national real estate investment trust (REIT) that focuses on the acquisition, selective development, redevelopment and management of multifamily projects, in the infill redevelopment of an 18.5 acre parcel to a mixed-use waterfront and retail project, including over 650 multi-family residential units, a waterfront restaurant and public boardwalk amenities.
- Represents real estate developer in a mixed-use project consisting of 243 multi-family residential units, a waterfront restaurant (with public boat slips and outdoor dining options), a 3,959 square foot co-working facility, 8,264 square feet of retail and significant public amenities, including a public park with open space, sidewalks, benches, a waterfront overlook, a new City seawall and enhanced public access to the water.
- Represents a developer of luxury resorts and hotels, upscale resort communities, golf courses, and hotel-serviced residential and recreational properties, as property rights counsel and in numerous land use appeals regarding the development of a 124-acre waterfront property in Naples, Florida. The project is a $2.2 billion mixed-used redevelopment project, including a five-star 220-room Four Seasons Hotel with residential condos, a golf course, spa, tennis center, retail space, a sports park, and various restaurants.
Professional & Community Involvement
- Commercial Real Estate Women (CREW) Tampa Bay
- Past-President, 2024
- President, 2023
- President-Elect, 2022
- National Delegate, 2021-Present
- Board of Directors, 2015-2019, 2021-Present
- Housing Leadership Council of Tampa Bay, Board of Directors, 2024
- National Association of Industrial and Office Properties (NAIOP), Tampa Bay Chapter, 2024-Present
- University of Florida (UF) Bergstrom Real Estate Advisory Board, 2018-Present
- Hillsborough County Bar Foundation, Board of Trustees, 2022
Recognition
- Florida Trend, Legal Elite NOTABLE – Women Leaders in Law, 2023
- Tampa Bay Business Journal, BusinessWoman of the Year Honoree, 2023
- The Best Lawyers in America, 2018-Present
- Florida Super Lawyers, 2017-2018, 2020-Present
- Excellence Award, (CREW) Tampa Bay Sales Transactions, 2017
Publications & Presentations
Events:
Post-Election Economic Update: The Impact on Our Economy and CRE Policies
The Society of Real Estate Professionals (SOREP)|November 2024
Land Development News Update, Publications:
Hurricanes, Flash Floods, and Tornadoes – Development Permit Extension Opportunities Are Now Available
Stearns Weaver Miller News Update|September 2024
Publications:
Thoughtful Design
Invest: Tampa Bay|November 2023
Events:
WEBINAR: SB102 “The Live Local Act”
Stearns Weaver Miller Webinar|May 2023
Events:
Private Practitioners Panel
Fifth Annual Environmental and Land Use Law Conference|April 2023
Land Development News Update, Publications:
What's Developing | Winter 2023
Stearns Weaver Miller News Update|March 2023
Land Development News Update, Publications:
Hillsborough County Proposes Significant Updates to Comprehensive Plan
Stearns Weaver Miller News Update|October 2022
Land Development News Update, Publications:
What's Developing | Summer 2022
Stearns Weaver Miller News Update|September 2022
Newsroom
In the Media:
Tampa developer plans first-of-its-kind project in Wimauma
Tampa Bay Business Journal|September 2024
In the Media:
Hillsborough County to consider limiting Live Local Act on certain sites
Tampa Bay Business Journal|August 2024
In the Media:
TradeWinds Resort gets green light to expand
Spectrum News|April 2024
Firm Announcements:
Three Stearns Weaver Miller Shareholders Selected as Florida Trend’s Legal Elite NOTABLE – Women Leaders in Law
November 2023
In the Media:
Snug Harbor's Acquisition Caps Turnaround for Prime Waterfront Development Site
CoStar|April 2023
In the Media:
Business Woman of the Year 2023
Tampa Bay Business Journal|March 2023
Firm Announcements:
Elise Batsel Recognized As a 2023 Tampa Bay Business Journal, BusinessWoman of the Year Honoree
January 2023
In the Media:
CREW Tampa Bay Spotlight - Stearns Weaver Miller
CREW Tampa Bay|January 2023