Real Estate

Details

HunterMaclean’s real estate practice group offers comprehensive legal and business counsel on a wide range of real estate matters. Our team of real estate attorneys uses innovative and resourceful ideas to help clients structure and document transactions to match their business plans. They work closely with all facets of a project, including acquisition, land use and zoning, environmental review and permitting, capitalization, financing, development, construction, leasing, and resale.

Our real estate attorneys have extensive experience handling a wide variety of commercial and residential transactions and work with owners and developers of shopping centers, mixed-use projects, hotels, apartments, office buildings, industrial and business parks, affordable housing projects, educational facilities, and timberland.

The Firm can also handle residential real estate closings and other residential real estate needs for our clients in Glynn County and Savannah as a complement to our core individual and business legal services.

By working in conjunction with attorneys in other departments, our real estate practice group also regularly advises clients on corporate, tax, bond financing, bankruptcy, employment, and ERISA issues.

Experience

• Represented an economic development authority in the acquisition of a 6,000 acre tract of timberland to be developed into an industrial park in Liberty County, Georgia. The representation included all facets of development, including Section 404 permitting, securing the permits to become a designated regional service provider (sewer and water), and resolution of zoning issues.
• Represented a Swedish consulting company in connection with its $200 million development of a wood pellet manufacturing plant and harbor warehouse/distribution center for a German utility company. The transaction included customary due diligence, environmental investigations, and contracting issues, including negotiation of documents related to incentives such as tax abatements and grant funds. Also assisted the client with development issues related to other potential sites in Georgia and adjoining states.
• Represented CSX Realty and the Westin Savannah Harbor Resort on Hutchinson Island, located across the Savannah River from historic downtown Savannah, Georgia, in real estate matters and environmental due diligence and permitting in the ever-expanding development of Hutchinson Island. Handled land acquisition, title, land use and zoning issues, governmental relations with the county and city regarding sewer, water, and future marina to be located on the site, resulting in a public-private partnership for funding of infrastructure for the island and an investment to date exceeding $450 million.
• Represented Fort Howard Corporation in land acquisition, environmental due diligence, and permitting of a $750 million recycled tissue mill located in Effingham County on the Savannah River.
• Assisted large trailer manufacturer with new corporate offices and research facility being constructed on Development Authority property. Handled the customary transactional due diligence, environmental due diligence, and contracting for this facility, including finalizing the development agreement and lease from the Development Authority in order to receive tax abatements.
• Worked with developer on agreements bringing water and sewer service to a planned 1,100 acre mixed-use park for manufacturing, warehousing, distribution, and commercial development in Bryan County, Georgia.
• Coordinated the planning and wetland permitting for the 1,800 acre mixed-use Crossroads Business Center in Chatham County, which was recognized by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as a first-of-its-kind wetland permitted project.
• Represented a Fortune 500 aerospace manufacturer in a substantial real estate expansion to develop and produce new product lines and training facilities.
• Coordinated environmental due diligence and negotiated environmental provisions in an asset purchase transaction that involved redevelopment of a major manufacturing facility of heavy equipment in the Midwest. The location was a brownfield site and required extensive coordination with both EPA and the State of Indiana in the cleanup of various constituents including asbestos, solvents, and PCBs, among others.
• Coordinated environmental due diligence and negotiated environmental provisions in deal documents as part of the overall representation in the purchase of an ocean port terminal and a related chain of gas stations with approximately sixty locations in the Southeast.
• Coordinated the Corps of Engineers permitting and title acquisition for a major textile chemical manufacturing plant located on the Savannah River.
• Assisted a metal fabricating business, based in the northeastern United States, with due diligence and contracting matters related to a plant expansion in the northern part of Georgia. This was a development authority transaction being structured as a lease with payments in lieu of taxes.
• Assisted an international manufacturer of building materials with locating a new plant in Georgia, including customary due diligence, documentation related to various incentives, and related real estate matters.
• Assisted a national apparel retailer with its acquisition of a distribution facility in the western United States. The transaction involved customary legal services such as negotiation of acquisition contract, coordination of all due diligence (title, survey, environmental reports, and physical condition assessment), and closing the transaction.