Practice Areas & Industries: Carlton Fields, P.A.

Practice Group Overview

America's boom in construction and property acquisition has made real estate law one of the most important, complex, and challenging areas of legal practice. Real estate laws, rules, and regulations change constantly and can vary widely from one jurisdiction to another. Accordingly, success in any real estate transaction requires counsel that genuinely understand every aspect of real property acquisition, development, investment, regulation, title insurance, financing, leasing, ownership, use, and transfer.

At Carlton Fields, we use exactly that high level of real estate knowledge to advance our clients' interests ¿ working closely with the skilled and experienced non-legal professionals on the client's team. Moreover, we work closely to understand your business practices and culture and integrate our work accordingly.

Carlton Fields' real estate lawyers assist their clients with every major aspect of real estate development and investment: land acquisition and finance, application for governmental permitting and regulatory approvals, financing of the costs of improvements, construction of facilities, managing and operating commercial properties, and disposition of real estate assets. Because of Carlton Fields' breadth of experience in the real estate area, the firm is prepared to handle the wide variety of real estate-related legal issues facing clients in today's changing marketplace. Carlton Fields provides its clients with critical advice and guidance for the development, management and operation of a wide variety of projects, including:

• Office buildings
• Office parks
• Mixed-use projects
• Hotels and resorts
• Condominiums
• Timeshare and vacation ownership resorts and facilities
• Residential planned communities and subdivisions
• Golf courses
• Sports stadiums and entertainment venues
• Convention centers
• Warehouse and industrial projects
• Shopping centers
• Hospitals and other health care facilities
• Apartment complexes

The Firm's real estate clients include landowners, developers, investment trusts, pension fund advisors, architects, construction companies, brokers, lenders, banks, property management firms, major tenants and government authorities.

In fact, our dual experience -- representing certain government offices as well as representing clients before government -- has proven especially useful in helping foster solid working relationships. For example, the success of many projects hinges on cooperation with government authorities and elected officials on potentially contentious issues including land use regulations, environmental concerns, permits and ad valorem tax challenges. We are experienced in formulating public-private partnerships to develop and manage complex mixed-use projects -- some of which require creative financing mechanisms including municipal tax-exempt and taxable financing.

Many projects also present title issues that require counsel to obtain and analyze title insurance coverage or resolve title disputes. Our lawyers understand the role of title insurance in complex commercial real estate transactions. And as agents for the major national title insurance companies, they have extensive contacts and relationships in the title industry.

REPRESENTATIVE MATTERS

• Numerous matters for WCI Communities Inc. and Wyndham Vacation Resorts, Inc. both in terms of development and financing
• A number of golf course sales and acquisitions
• Development and finance work on CityPlace, West Palm Beach
• A $90M asset based loan for Bank of America
• Acquisition and loan work for development of 12+ Ruby Tuesday restaurants in Florida since 1998
• Refinance and work-out of bankruptcy for lenders in connection with loans to Prime Succession, Inc., a company that owns and operates funeral homes and cemeteries around the country
• An $80 million acquisition of approximately 1,000 apartments
• An $82 million loan on 2 major office buildings in Ft. Lauderdale