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Our Real Estate Department is nationally recognized for its skill in negotiating and documenting sophisticated real estate matters, including sales and acquisitions, financing, construction and development, retail, office and industrial leasing, property management and multi-party, tax-deferred exchanges. Environmental issues are addressed and, if need be, handled in conjunction with our Litigation Department. We take special pride in bringing the same expertise and diligence to smaller matters more common to individual clients as we devote to larger projects.
COMMERCIAL LEASING
Our Real Estate Department represents landlords and tenants in lease transactions concerning real estate of all types, including shopping center, industrial and office properties.
Our services include:
- Lease negotiation and documentation for commercial, industrial and office properties
- Development of standard lease forms for office and retail projects
- Ground Leases
Our clients include:
- Leading international industrial and manufacturing companies, national department store retailers, and regional home improvement chains
- One of the nation’s largest owners of regional malls, as well as large and small center developers of shopping centers
ACQUISITIONS & SALES
Our Real Estate Department handles the purchase and sale of many different types of real estate, including negotiation of financing documents and documentation of tax-deferred exchanges. Transactions include the purchase and sale of multi-state properties and retail chains involving dozens, even hundreds, of locations.
Our expertise includes:
- Shopping centers, industrial and office developments, multi-family residential projects and residential developments
- Review of title, survey, environmental and zoning issues; review and summarizing of leases and other due diligence aspects of a purchase or sale transaction
- Structuring joint venture, tenancy in common and other joint ownership arrangements
The Department has handled the acquisition of a $500 Million operating retail chain, and the disposition of several hundred properties as part of the liquidation of a retail chain. Clients include Fortune 500 companies, shopping center developers, and some of the largest office and industrial developers in Southern California.
CONSTRUCTION AND DEVELOPMENT
Our Real Estate Department represents developers in the development, redevelopment and expansion of retail, office and industrial developments.
Our experience includes:
- Negotiating and reviewing land and development loans, preparing construction financing documents, and structuring alternative financing arrangements
- Assisting with zoning approvals, subdivisions and other land use entitlements
- Negotiating development agreements, DDA’s and municipal financing arrangements with governmental agencies
- Drafting and review of design and construction contracts with architects, contractors and consultants
TAX PLANNING
Our tax attorneys are an integral part of the Real Estate Department. This expertise is frequently drawn upon when a real estate matter involves corporate or tax planning issues.
Tax planning issues include:
- Formation of various business entities, including joint ventures, partnerships, corporations and limited liability companies
- Real property exchanges, the purchase and sale of businesses involving real estate assets, like-kind exchanges, condemnations, “negative basis” situations
- Tax issues that arise in real estate transactions, including purchases and sales, refinancing, short-pays, debt cancellations and foreclosures
REAL ESTATE FINANCING
Our real estate attorneys are experienced in representing institutional lenders and borrowers in complex real estate and project financings, including:
- Raw land and commercial and industrial property acquisition, development and refinancing loans
- Residential tracts and common area development construction loans
- Mixed use and phased projects arrangements
- Leasehold financings
- Public projects
- Mixed collateral secured loans
- Multi-state borrowings
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
Our Real Estate Department also has extensive experience in providing legal counsel to clients owning, developing, selling, purchasing or leasing contaminated properties. In addition to assisting clients with the environmental review of properties being purchased or leased, we will also interface and negotiate with governmental authorities regarding the scope of required remediation.
TROUBLED PROJECTS
The Department frequently represents developers, owners and lenders in troubled real estate projects.
Our experience includes:
- Representation of borrowers and lenders in loan restructuring and “work outs”
- Renegotiating anchor leases or other key operating agreements pertaining to troubled projects
- Representing creditors in bankruptcy proceedings and coordinating with bankruptcy counsel where a client’s troubled project necessitates bankruptcy proceedings
DISPUTE RESOLUTION & LITIGATION
Our Litigation Department is skilled in both alternative dispute resolution and the handling of trials at all stages. Our philosophy is to seek to achieve the client’s goals and objectives in the advocacy process in a cost-effective manner and to explore all avenues of dispute resolution whenever possible.
Our litigation attorneys have handled:
- Prosecuting and defending claims regarding purchase and sale agreements, partnership disputes and dissolutions
- Lease disputes
- Environmental contamination matters
- Construction defect claims and title disputes
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