Practice Areas & Industries: Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP

Practice/Industry Group Overview

Real Estate

Laying a sound foundation for real estate deals
Real estate development—that’s what happens between the groundbreaking and the ribbon cutting, right? Seasoned real estate professionals know otherwise. A lot of issues have to be successfully managed to prepare the groundwork for that moment when the first shovel hits the dirt.

Structuring a real estate project has become increasingly complex, especially in a changing economy. The challenges facing the world’s top developers, owners, investors, financial institutions and funds demand experienced and intelligent legal representation.

Experience built from the ground up
Manatt has one of the largest real estate practices in the United States, and our lawyers individually are among the top real estate and development advisors in the nation. We offer, at every stage of the development process—from acquisition and financing to entitlement, construction and disposition—the transactional know-how, market insight and relationships crucial to a project’s success.

Manatt’s Real Estate Practice Group includes legal and non-legal professionals who have been commercial property owners, developers and mortgage banking executives; served as city attorneys, planning board members and local government regulators; worked in state governments; and served in federal agencies. This wealth of real-world experience better positions us to understand and help solve our clients’ greatest challenges.

Our cutting-edge expertise and strong ties with investors, lenders, developers, regulators and government officials lawyers keep us at the forefront of current industry developments. We are particularly adept at helping clients navigate the political and government landscape; the complex network of laws and regulations seeking to minimize environmental impacts.

A panoramic view of the real estate landscape
With a practice as large and diverse as ours, our lawyers have counseled clients on virtually every type of real estate transaction, including acquisitions and dispositions; development; joint ventures; secured loans; mezzanine financing and preferred equity structures; leasing; property management and construction; workouts and foreclosures; reorganization transactions; real estate fund formations; public and private offerings of real estate debt and equity securities; and real estate litigation.  Our land use practice is nationally known for its ability to tackle complex land use issues and to address the challenges and opportunities for green development.

Many of our lawyers were active players during the real estate recession of the early 1990s.  Thus, we are able to bring real-world experience to the advice we provide regarding distressed assets—from foreclosures and deeds in lieu to workout structures and loan-portfolio sales to the repositioning and disposition of OREO assets. 

Our client roster is as diverse as the matters we handle and includes domestic and foreign lenders, investors, landlords and tenants, developers, contractors, not-for-profits and others in connection with the acquisition, planning, financing, development, leasing, lease auditing, syndication and disposition of real property.

Our development work spans every product type and has taken our lawyers to every corner of the United States, and a number of foreign countries. The projects have included hotel and resort developments, office buildings, single-family residential tracts and multifamily buildings (from luxury to affordable), shopping centers and power malls, industrial parks and mixed-use developments, dormitories, hospitals, community centers and museums.

As part of a large, full-service firm at their, our real estate lawyers have frequent contact and often work closely with lawyers in such real estate-related practice areas as banking, corporate, environmental, securities, bankruptcy, litigation, eminent domain and government.

Recognized for our handling of complex land use matters
Both our land use practice and the attorneys who have made this an area of focus have been nationally recognized for our firm’s handling of many of California’s most challenging and sensitive entitlement matters.

Land use matters can also raise some challenging environmental issues, such as protecting habitat and coastal resources, conservation and preservation of open space, and protection of endangered species. Our land use professionals have confronted and successfully addressed these challenges, securing the necessary entitlements and approvals by, first, anticipating the hurdles (and recognizing the opportunities) and then strategically securing the support of staff, community activists and elected officials.

At the forefront of green development
These days, there’s no shortage of incentives for sustainable, environmentally friendly building projects—just as there’s no question that green development requirements aren’t going away anytime soon.

Manatt has demonstrated its commitment to green development by building one of the nation’s leading practices in this area. With several LEED-certified lawyers on our team, our knowledge of jurisdictional, legislative and code requirements and standards has helped our clients maximizes their projects’ full profit potential. When it comes to green development, we’re anything but “green.” Our experience has included projects as diverse as “greening the big box” for an international retailer, creating a green power plant for an international energy company and developing sustainable communities.

Services Available

Areas of Focus

Acquisition and Disposition of Real Estate
Manatt’s attorneys have an extensive knowledge of the real estate industry and deliver the highest quality transactional expertise and market insight needed for a successful, expedited project. Our experience is not limited by the type of asset. Our projects involve a number of different types of properties, including raw land, commercial, retail, office, industrial, mixed-use, hotel, time share, golf course, winery, senior housing, health-care and resort properties. Manatt clients include domestic and foreign developers, institutional developers, pension funds, not-for-profits, landlords and tenants, lenders, regular and special servicers, borrowers, private investment funds, contractors and other parties involved in the acquisition, planning, financing, development, leasing, lease auditing, syndication and disposition of real property.  

Affordable Housing
Manatt’s Affordable Housing Practice is comprised of the firm’s corporate, real estate and tax attorneys who have broad experience in all aspects of development.  The firm’s attorneys have represented clients involved with the financing and development of affordable housing since before the enactment of the low-income housing tax credit and have over 20 years of experience in representing real estate developers, lenders and tax credit equity investors in connection with the construction, rehabilitation, development and financing of affordable housing.  Our clients include for-profit and non-profit developers, investors, investment banks and other organizations in the full range of business activities relating to affordable housing development.  

Educational Institution Real Estate
Manatt, Phelps & Phillips’ representation of colleges, universities, and other educational institutions spans a wide range of the firm’s practice areas.  The firm includes lawyers who previously served as in-house counsel for a private university with extensive land holdings and others who practiced public law for government agencies; in those capacities, these attorneys provided ongoing advice to colleges and universities in a variety of contexts, including budgeting issues.  Several of Manatt’s lawyers also have past and present experience serving on governing boards of educational institutions.  These lawyers bring a broad range of valuable experience and expertise to its representation of educational institutions.  Others have served as senior directors of real estate campus and real estate investment portfolios in major universities.  In addition the firm’s extensive healthcare practice enables its attorneys to provide expert advice to institutions with academic medical centers, teaching hospitals and other programs where education and healthcare issues overlap.

Hospitality
The real estate and land use attorneys in Manatt’s Hospitality Practice Group have the knowledge and experience required to give our clients the edge to succeed.  Our professionals are among the premier practitioners in the nation, with proficiency in virtually every aspect of the hospitality industry.  Our in-depth experience enables us to provide value-added counseling and legal services.  We stay current on industry developments and maintain strong ties with regulators and other government officials, and are therefore particularly adept at helping our clients navigate the morass of political approvals and regulatory compliance.  

Leasing
With a preeminent leasing practice, Manatt real estate attorneys bring a special market awareness resulting from representing both landlords and tenants in all types of commercial, industrial, retail and other business lease transactions.  We have a depth of experience in negotiating and documenting lease transactions involving properties with differing uses, such as office and medical office buildings, industrial warehouses and manufacturing facilities, national theaters, big-box stores, restaurants, shopping malls, restaurants, retail and agricultural (winery).  Our experience extends to most, if not all, states across the United States, as well as internationally, in countries such as Australia, China, Dubai, France, Spain, Mexico, Mozambique and Vietnam. 

Master Planned Communities
Lawyers at Manatt Phelps & Phillips LLP have specialized and unique expertise in the acquisition, disposition, development and finance of master planned communities.  Our attorneys have worked with clients to plan, develop and execute the development of all sizes of master planned projects, ranging from 30 acres to 300,000 acres. 

Real Estate Restructuring and Workouts
Manatt lawyers represent our clients in connection with all aspects of troubled and non-performing real estate projects.  We are engaged by lenders, developers, owners, and investors, and also with respect to partnership and landlord/tenant matters.  Our real estate lawyers work seamlessly with our colleagues in other specialties to create, document, and execute innovative and effective solutions to a diverse array of restructuring and workout challenges. 

Residential Development & Finance Practice
The lawyers at Manatt are strong in the representation of capital sources for residential real estate development and construction projects, which includes extensive representation of commercial banks in their construction lending activities.  We also have extensive experience representing Wall Street investment houses, opportunity funds, pension advisors and other investors in a wide variety of joint ventures, limited partnerships, limited liability companies, participating and mezzanine debt and other types of investments in entitled and unentitled land development deals, acquisition and development projects, housing joint ventures and apartment and other multifamily developments, including condominium conversions. 

Vineyard
Manatt attorneys have a broad background in all areas of finance, real estate and land use relevant to the vineyard, wine and beverage industries.  Our professionals are among the premier real estate and development advisors in the nation.  They deliver the transactional expertise, market insight and advocacy necessary to the completion of successful and expeditious projects, from land acquisition through financing, vineyard development, entitlement, construction, leasing and disposition.  Our real estate practitioners are effective because they combine in-depth knowledge of the vineyard, wine and beverage industries with their in-depth knowledge of the law. 

Clients:
Bank of America Corp., Bank of America Corp., BNSF Railway, BNSF Railway, Carpenters Pension Trust for Southern California, Carpenters Pension Trust for Southern California, Casden Properties LLC, Casden Properties LLC, Comerica, Inc., Comerica, Inc., County of Los Angeles, County of Los Angeles, Lennar Partners , Lennar Partners , Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority , Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority , Lowe Enterprises, Inc., Lowe Enterprises, Inc., Mills Corporation, Mills Corporation, Pacific Theatres Corp., Pacific Theatres Corp., Shea Properties, Shea Properties, The Related Companies, The Related Companies