Practice Areas & Industries: Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP

Practice/Industry Group Overview

Our Real Estate Practice Group provides essential support services for corporate and other firm clients with significant real estate assets. For many of these clients, the primary focus of their business is not real estate. Our lawyers are able to provide critical expertise and knowledge to assist these clients with the management of their real estate on an ongoing basis and in connection with mergers, acquisitions and other business transactions. In addition to acquisitions, dispositions and leasing of sites, we advise our clients with respect to the monetization of noncore real estate assets, including sale and leasebacks and other financial strategies. We handle due diligence review and inventory of real estate assets in mergers and acquisitions, and we advise our clients on structures for management of real estate assets.

When the nature of the real estate assets or a client’s business operations create environmental concerns, we work with our environmental lawyers to assess compliance with federal, state and local environmental regulations and, when necessary, development of remediation strategies.

Services Available

Representative Engagements:

• Ongoing representation of a publicly traded, national industrial and manufacturing company with its acquisitions and dispositions of plant sites throughout the United States.
• Represented Norwegian-based Kvaerner (now known as Aker ASA) in the acquisition of a 114-acre waterfront tract in Philadelphia for development and use as a state-of-the-art commercial ship building operation.
• Represented Kulicke and Soffa Industries, Inc., an international leader in semi-conductor assembly equipment manufacturing, in the leasing of its new world headquarters in Ft. Washington, Pa.
• Represented Urban Outfitters, Inc. in the acquisition by purchase, lease and option of approximately 400,000 square feet of space spread over multiple buildings in the former Philadelphia Naval Shipyard for the creation of a corporate campus and world headquarters. This project also included extensive land use, zoning, historic tax credit and environmental issues.
• Due diligence evaluation and oversight of transfer of leases, subleases and licenses of transmission sites involved with purchase and sale of telecommunications business.
• Negotiation and drafting of contract representations and warranties, and performance of title work for more than 100 sites in the sale of a manufacturing business.
• Represented a of parking management company with leases and management agreements affecting properties throughout the Chicago metropolitan area.