Commercial Real Estate

Details

At HunterMaclean, our commercial real estate practice group offers comprehensive legal and business counsel on a wide range of real estate matters.

Our team of attorneys uses innovative and resourceful ideas to help clients structure and document transactions to match their business plans. We work closely with all facets of commercial projects, 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 transactions and working 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. Working in conjunction with attorneys in other practice areas, our commercial real estate practice group also regularly advises clients on corporate, tax, bond financing, bankruptcy, employment, and ERISA issues.

Experience

• Representing Batson-Cook Development Company and several other companies in the development of News Place on Ellis Square in the Savannah historic district. The project opened in 2008 and includes a city-owned 1075-space subterranean parking garage constructed under a historic square, the restoration of Ellis Square, construction of a new hotel, restoration of the historic Savannah Morning News buildings for a Ruth’s Chris Steak House and other retail and restaurant uses, and development of forty luxury condominium units facing Savannah River.
• Representing the Westin Savannah Harbor Resort and the Savannah International Trade and Convention Center on Hutchinson Island, just across the river from historic downtown Savannah. Over a twelve year period, we handled land acquisition, environmental permitting, zoning and land use issues, governmental relations including the annexation of the property into the City of Savannah, negotiation of a contract with the City that enabled irrigation of the golf course on the island with treated effluent, and formation of a public-private partnership that developed the infrastructure for the island, resulting in a combined investment of over $200 million.
• Representing Fort Howard Corporation in locating and constructing a $750 million recycled tissue mill in Effingham County, Georgia. We handled land assembly of over thirty separate parcels, governmental relations, local property tax and land use issues, and negotiations with state agencies concerning road construction and environmental permitting.
• Representing the owners of Oglethorpe Mall, the largest regional shopping center in South Georgia, in acquiring a substantial number of surrounding properties and in planning and implementing several major expansions of the mall in a built-up urban environment.
• Representing the Savannah Economic Development Authority as its special environmental counsel in obtaining a first-of-its-kind wetland permit pursuant to Section 404 of the Clean Water Act, which led to the pre-permitting of the wetland development within Crossroads Business Center, a 1,750 acre mixed-use industrial park.
• Representing numerous shopping center owners and their operators and real estate brokers in acquiring properties, developing the sites, obtaining governmental permitting, and leasing and managing the properties.
• Representing developers and lenders in the financing of commercial real estate projects. Also successfully appealing increases in the tax assessments of numerous commercial properties.
• Representing affordable housing developers in obtaining and syndicating I.R.C. Section 42 tax credits and obtaining additional financing for such projects through conventional financing, tax-exempt bond issuances, HUD loan programs, and loan programs offered by the Georgia Department of Community Affairs.
• Representing convenience store and gas station owners with real estate, permitting, and regulatory matters.
• Represented the developer of Trustees’ Garden, which is located on the site of the original gardens planted by the Trustees of the Colony of Georgia. The project is located on the site of a former manufactured gas plant. In cooperation with counsel for the seller-utility, obtained “prospective purchaser” limitation of liability certification for the buyer and developer from Georgia Environmental Protection Division.
• Represented the owner of a 4,000 acre timber tract that was located on all four quadrants of the intersection of Interstate Highways 16 and 95 in selling the property in phases over a period of several years. Negotiated a development agreement under which the seller obtained a percentage of the retail sales price as the property was developed.
• Assisted a metal fabricating business based in the Northeast with due diligence and contracting matters related to a plant expansion in north Georgia. This was a development authority transaction that was being structured as a lease with payments in lieu of taxes.
• Assisted an international manufacturer of building materials in locating a new plant in Georgia, including customary due diligence, documentation related to incentives, and associated real estate matters.
• Assisted a national apparel retailer in acquiring a distribution facility in the western United States. The transaction involved customary legal services including negotiation of acquisition contract, coordination of all due diligence (title, survey, assessment of physical condition, and environmental reports), and closing the transaction.

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