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Services Available
An Enviable Reputation; a Statewide Presence
The firm has had an active real estate practice since its founding in 1920. Today, our real estate attorneys operate from each of our nine offices, covering the state with an insider's knowledge of its communities and with the respect of boards, commissions, and regulators from Key West to the Panhandle. In each of our offices, we have the contacts with and reputation among other practitioners, third-party consultants, experts, and advisors that are critical to the successful resolution of a real estate transaction. Our lawyers are entrusted with many of the highest profile matters in Florida.
An In-Depth Knowledge of All Asset Classes
We deal with raw land, retail, industrial, office and hotel properties, multi-family residential projects, and planned communities.
Representation of Clients in All Aspects of the Real Estate Industry
The Group represents lenders, borrowers, sellers, buyers, developers, investors, landlords, tenants -- a broad variety of public and private entities and individuals who are in the real estate business. These diverse parties include financial institutions, real estate investment trusts, investment advisors, pension funds, insurance companies, institutional investors, tax-exempt entities, governmental units, and foreign investors. Our deep experience in working with this variety of parties, in a broad variety of real estate transactions, adds value.
A Cross-Section of Specialists and Generalists
Our lawyers range from generalist problem solvers to specialist practitioners critical to our clients' industry sectors and markets. The combination enables us to successfully resolve difficult issues in a cost-efficient manner. Our specialty areas include land use and entitlements; finance, both debt and equity (and on the other side of the cycle, workouts, restructurings, foreclosures, and bankruptcies); income property (a group concentrating on leasing, management, and other ownership issues); and a team whose practices focus on the acquisition and development of projects within all the real estate asset classes. Our attorneys have outstanding academic and professional backgrounds; many have practiced with significant New York firms.
Access to Other Practice Areas
When appropriate, lawyers from many other areas in the firm work with our real estate lawyers. If litigation is required, our real estate litigators are prepared to act on behalf of our clients. Our tax lawyers help devise innovative and tax-efficient structures to minimize investors' after-tax returns. Our eminent domain, bankruptcy, corporate, environmental and ERISA lawyers become involved, depending on the demands of the assignment.
ACQUISITIONS AND SALES
The purchase and sale transaction is the foundation of any real estate practice. We represent buyers and sellers in a broad range of real estate acquisition and sale transactions ranging from the purchase of a hotel resort for hundreds of millions of dollars to the sale of a warehouse for a million dollars. Our practice is broad enough to include the implementation of an investment program for a pension fund and assisting with the due diligence and other real property aspects of a significant corporate merger or acquisition. We handle:
- Acquisitions and sales of office buildings, shopping centers, hotels and resorts, development sites, multi-use projects, warehouse and industrial properties, multi-family properties, privately developed and operated arenas, and correctional facilities
- Foreclosure and bankruptcy sales and dispositions
- 1031 like-kind exchanges
- Condominium and land sales registrations
Our clients in these transactions include publicly-traded companies, developers, investors, investment and pension funds, real estate companies, and not-for-profit organizations.
When needed, our real estate lawyers work with Akerman Senterfitt's corporate, tax, bankruptcy, and environmental lawyers.
DEVELOPMENT
Throughout Florida and in other parts of the United States, Latin America, and the Caribbean, Akerman Senterfitt's Real Estate Group is integrally involved in the development of office, residential, hotel and resort, shopping center, industrial, multi-family, luxury condominium, mixed-use, and planned residential projects and communities.
Our representation includes the negotiation of joint venture or other investment structures; land planning, assemblage and acquisition; acquisition, development and construction financing; procurement of entitlements and incentives, environmental due diligence, and permitting; architectural and construction agreements; leasing; and management.
Akerman Senterfitt's development clients include developers, real estate companies, public and private operating companies, and institutional and entrepreneurial investors.
FINANCING
We represent borrowers and lenders in a broad range of financing transactions:
- Acquisition, development and construction loans
- Take out and permanent loans
- Securitized lending
- Sale-lease back transactions
- Synthetic lease and off balance sheet financings
- Tax exempt financings
- Public market financings
- Mezzanine lending
- Credit enhancement
- Interest rate swaps
- Letters of credit
- Multi state secured financings
Our lawyers are experienced in single-asset and portfolio transactions involving office buildings, shopping centers and other retail properties, hotels and resorts, multi-family properties, planned residential communities, warehouse and industrial properties, correctional facilities, and stadiums and arenas.
We also are engaged to work on public-private partnerships for the construction of infrastructure, the creation of community development districts, and other public financing aspects of real estate development.
On behalf of real estate developers, institutional investors, and private investors, our lawyers structure real estate investment entities in connection with legal and business issues regarding the formation of real estate investment funds and real estate syndications. Akerman Senterfitt's corporate, tax, and ERISA lawyers are called on to address relevant tax, and securities law issues.
WORKOUTS AND RESTRUCTURING
On the other side of the lending cycle, the Real Estate Group also advises on real estate workouts, restructurings, foreclosures, and bankruptcies. Because our lawyers have experienced several down cycles in the real estate market, they are well-qualified in this practice area, representing lenders and borrowers alike.
Lessons learned from our work in this area often lead to the development of new approaches to financing transactions, thus making our lending and workout practices complementary.
LEASING
The Real Estate Group has handled literally hundreds of lease transactions, from relatively small space leases to major corporate headquarters transactions. We are active on the owner's and tenant's side of leasing matters, and the practice encompasses office, retail, warehouse, and net/ground lease transactions.
The Group administers national leasing programs for operating and retail companies. Our leasing lawyers represent various pension funds and other institutional investors as landlords.
In the retail area, we are regularly engaged on a variety of issues including REA's, going dark, radius restrictions, expansion, tenant bankruptcy, and percentage lease issues.
Our net/ground lease practice encompasses sophisticated tax-driven transactions as well as traditional ground leases and sale/lease back transactions of development properties.
The group's leasing work extends beyond the pure demising of space. Our lawyers are significantly involved in related architectural, construction, permitting, and other "work letter" issues, including power, telecommunications, and other infrastructure requirements.
We also represent property management companies in shopping centers, business parks, office buildings, and major residential housing complexes, and work with Akerman Senterfitt's litigators in various landlord-tenant and other litigation matters, including representation in bankruptcy court and administrative tribunals.
LAND USE AND ZONING
Due to population growth, suburban sprawl, and an extremely sensitive environment, Florida's development laws and regulations are among the complicated in the nation. The firm offers clients one of the largest and most sophisticated land use and zoning practices in the State.
Akerman Senterfitt's land use and zoning practice advises and represents real estate developers, businesses, and non-profit organizations in matters including:
- Land use entitlements
- Federal, state, and county incentive programs
- Zoning
- Environmental issues
- Wetlands and wildlife issues
- Archeological issues
- Historic preservation issues
- Transportation and other concurrency issues
- Development of public, quasi-public, and publicly sponsored commercial and residential projects
- Developments of regional impact
- Water issues
- Building code issues
- Brownfields
Our land use and zoning lawyers bring to clients the ability to understand and negotiate governmental processes. Working with the firm's real estate, litigation, corporate, finance (including public finance), and environmental lawyers, as well as with third-party consultants and lobbyists, they constitute one of only two or three practice groups in Florida that is equipped to manage any issue in this area, no matter how complex.
CONSTRUCTION
Our lawyers are active in representing various participants in the construction process, including owners, contractors, design professionals, and tenants, and have experience involving the design, construction and renovation of office, industrial, retail, condominium, multi-family, single-family, golf course, hotel, correctional facility, telecommunications, and other projects. Our real estate lawyers often team with Akerman Senterfitt's construction litigators in representing clients in litigation or arbitration proceedings involving construction disputes.
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Clients:
Indian Creek Village , Edison Schools, Inc. , M&H Homestead, Ltd. , J.W. Harris Company , Kendall Commons, Inc. , Baptist Health Systems , Ryder System, Inc. , Arena Development Company, Ltd, Steiner Leisure , Aviation Sales Company , Fisher Island Holdings, LLC , C&S Real Estate Development Corp, Starwood Urban , Codina Development Corporation , Colonnade Properties, LLC , IBEX 1200 Brickell Associates , Union Planters Bank , Correctional Properties Trust , Union Planters Bank , SunTrust Bank , Wachovia Bank, N.A. , ING Investment Center , Palm Springs Mile Associates, Ltd , Boca Resorts Hotel Corporation , Union Planters Bank , Fisher Island Holdings, LLC , Phillips South Beach LLC , AIMCO Bay Club, L.P. , Blue Capital U.S. East Coast Real Estate L.P. , Apollo Real Estate Investment Fund IV, L.P. , Jowa Kosan, Ltd. , Palmetto Lakes Realty Associates, Ltd.
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