Practices: Real Estate

Real estate is more than a vital sector of the economy – it’s a complex, high-intensity marketplace where success means negotiating a successful strategy. The solution: business insight and a customized approach to meet your objectives in this highly competitive industry.

At Ungaretti & Harris we excel at:

• Property acquisitions and dispositions for major corporate clients.
• Lease transactions for landlords and tenants throughout the world.
• Loan advice and documentation services to major commercial, investment and mortgage lenders and commercial borrowers.
• Development projects throughout the country.

Counsel of Choice

No matter what your real estate goals are, we are here to help you achieve them. Ungaretti & Harris is transactional counsel of choice for corporate property owners – including “Fortune 500” giants – and commercial developers nationwide, large landlords and tenants and leading financial institutions. That’s because of the quality of service we offer. These are our strengths:

• Rapid turnaround (within hours if necessary) on everything from leases and contracts to zoning approvals.
• A mix of experienced senior attorneys (who include four “Illinois Super Lawyers” in real estate and tax and a member of the American College of Real Estate Lawyers) and skilled younger colleagues, for cost-efficient staffing.
• The nationwide experience from working with properties in more than 30 states during the past several years, including nearly 70 transactions last year just in our home Midwest region.
• The right combination of business advice and legal focus to get deals done smoothly and efficiently.

Market Leader

If Chicago is your real estate market, talk to us – Midwest Real Estate News ranked our Chicago office among the region’s top 15 real estate practices. Our resources in Chicago are extensive. Members of our team have served as President of the Chicago Mortgage Attorneys Association and actively participate in such groups as the Executives Club of Chicago and the Chicago Apartment Association. We know the key players in Chicago and Cook County government as well as key lenders so we can resolve tough problems. When you face obstacles like these, you’ll get the same kind of creative, effective help from us. Recent examples include:

• When a zoning dispute with Illinois municipal authorities prevented a “Fortune 50” client from opening its operations, we cut the necessary approval time to just two weeks from the normal four months.
• When a developer faced default on a multi-use downtown Chicago facility, we negotiated a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure settlement with a group of U.S. and foreign banks that released our client and its partners from all loan guaranty obligations.
• When a major investment bank needed to jump-start a multi-use development in the Streeterville area of Chicago that was stalled by 18 months of litigation, we negotiated agreements with the developer and first mortgage holder that gave our client possession by deed-in-lieu of foreclosure.

Acquisitions and Dispositions

Buying or selling real estate? We can help you successfully complete your transaction, no matter how large or complicated the deal is or how many states it involves. You can rely on us to maximize your tax advantage, and make transactions more profitable for you when planning, structuring and implementing purchases and sales. Our legal team can provide you with focused advice and experience, giving both sides a smooth closing to realize the benefits of the bargain. That’s because we excel at anticipating and resolving due diligence issues, environmental liability, title, deed and other problems during negotiation. These examples of recent transactions are typical of what we can do for you in your next real estate deal:

• Represent an investment partnership in the sale of a $50 million office building and $38 million shopping center in Southeast Florida.
• Represent purchasers and sellers in buying and selling high-rise office and residential buildings in downtown Chicago.
• Help a private equity syndicator buy and sell $500 million worth of shopping centers, office buildings, and apartments in Virginia, Arizona, Florida, California and Texas.
• Secure financing, Certificates of Need and Medicare/Medicaid certification so that major healthcare providers such as Humana, Inc. and the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago can buy long-term care and other facilities.
• Complete purchases and sales of corporate headquarters, medical office buildings, mixed-use facilities, warehouses, residential developments and apartments throughout Chicago.

Development Projects

Our lawyers will get your shopping center, office, manufacturing, hotel and resort, healthcare, or mixed-use development project done right. Using the experience we’ve gained from working with the key players in the development process, we’ll do what is needed to make your next project successful: obtain regulatory and land use approvals; craft the development agreement; conduct environmental due diligence; secure loans and development incentives; and make sure the construction and lease or sale of the project are successful. These are the kinds of projects we make happen:

• A national developer’s 3,000-acre master planned golf course community and retail project in Hawaii, valued at nearly $1 billion.
• A national developer’s financing of a one million square foot retail center in Omaha, Nebraska.
• A global conglomerate’s land deal and construction for two new manufacturing facilities in Tennessee and Mississippi.

Leasing Transactions

Whether you’re a landlord or a tenant, come to us for help with lease transactions. We have completed many leases, covering an average of 60,000 square feet, for office tenants in the U.S., Europe, Asia and Australia. The Ungaretti & Harris team has handled leases of national and local headquarters for “Fortune 500” corporations and their subsidiaries. For example we represented Fortune Brands and its Jim Beam subsidiary in leasing 150,000 square feet of headquarters space, and have completed more than 50 retail leasing projects for a national banking association. On the landlord side we have helped many institutional building owners lease office, industrial and retail properties, including a total of over 1.2 million square feet of office space for an institutional investment company.

Finance and Investment

Nobody wants to lose money on a real estate deal. Ungaretti & Harris helps financial institutions and investors make profitable equity and loan financings for real estate acquisitions, development and new construction. Our clients include national lenders, investment partnerships, insurance companies and specialized mortgage lenders. These are sophisticated clients, who require a cohesive team. That’s why our real estate, corporate and tax lawyers collaborate to help with every part of the deal process: land acquisition, zoning, financing, construction, leasing and sale. We’re often called upon to develop unique financing concepts and vehicles and can provide you with solutions such as:

• Multiple interest rate options based on fixed, Eurodollar and prime rate indices.
• Loans secured by low-income housing tax credits.
• Public and private purchases of commercial real estate made by investment syndicators for ERISA portfolios.
• Loans that secure foreign currency debt.

Other Real Estate Activities

You want one-stop shopping for all your real estate needs, and the full-service Ungaretti & Harris real estate practice gives it to you. These are the types of specialized things we do for corporate, developer and lender clients:

• Workouts and restructurings:
  • Resolve defaults on loans for office, hotel and retail properties around the country.
  • Restructure deals or take title by deed-in-lieu transactions or by foreclosure.
  • Handle the redevelopment of foreclosed properties as demonstrated by helping a major lender restructure a $78 million shopping mall loan in California to incorporate additional property and funding.
• Construction:
  • Represent general contractors in all aspects of the construction process.
  • Emphasize preparation of project bids, contracts and surety bonds.
• Regulatory approvals:
  • Use our contacts and skill to quickly help major corporations with critical zoning issues, including variances and appeals.
  • Handle such specialized matters such as landmark designations for properties.
  • Achieve zoning variances that meet client image needs for a headquarters campus while satisfying the requirements of the municipality of their location.
• Residential:
  • Take care of land acquisition and zoning for single-family residential developers, nationwide or in the Chicago area.
  • Help multi-family property developers buy, sell and finance complexes throughout the country.
  • Facilitate conversions of multi-family properties to condominiums, like our recent experience with helping a client acquire a multi-unit building, convert the building to a condominium and dispose of the individual units.

Outstanding Service

Ungaretti & Harris real estate attorneys know that time is money to you. We negotiate quickly and resolve disputes effectively. We won’t overstaff your transactions or waste time haggling over legal minutia. Whether it means returning phone calls promptly or applying business insight to a complex tax structure, we give you the kind of individualized attention that exceeds your expectations.