Full-Spectrum Real Estate Experience
Saul Ewing's Real Estate Department is dedicated to providing advice and representation for the diverse issues that arise during real estate transactions. With attorneys throughout the Mid-Atlantic region, we handle zoning, development, redevelopment, financing, selling and/or leasing matters, and coordinate from the earliest stage of development through the disposition of the finished project, a transformation that requires full land-use and transactional capacity.
Solutions: Experience in a Wide Range of Situations
Our attorneys offer diverse real estate experience. We have appeared before hundreds of zoning and planning authorities, and have helped developers, buyers, sellers, operators, tenants, and lenders negotiate projects with sophisticated structures and delicate environmental considerations. To help keep projects moving forward, we have helped lenders and debtors work out settlements and have handled construction disputes. We have written and proposed ordinances tailored to meet the creative nuances of complex multi-or mixed-use development projects. We have coordinated multi-state transactions for the disposition or acquisition of multiple properties in a single transaction.
Industry Knowledge: A Rapidly Changing Regulatory Environment
Saul Ewing's Real Estate attorneys stay at the leading edge of regulatory issues by participating in a wide range of industry activities. For example, the Real Estate Department includes attorneys who have served on planning commissions, zoning boards and regional planning authorities. In addition, our Real Estate attorneys often share their experience in lectures and articles about important legal issues and changes in the law that might affect the larger business community. We also publish updates regarding changes in real estate law to keep our clients informed of recent court and administrative decisions.
Saul Ewing Real Estate attorneys are active in real estate-related bar associations across the region, and are also active in numerous trade groups, such as:
- National Association of Industrial and Office Properties
- International Council of Shopping Centers
- National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts
- Pension Real Estate Association
- CREW Network
- Various regional homebuilders associations
- Corporate Real Estate Network
- Urban Land Institute
- Zell/Lurie Real Estate Center
This kind of hands-on industry interaction gives Saul Ewing's Real Estate attorneys a deep knowledge of issues that affect everyday transactions.
Representative Matters
- Saul Ewing’s Business and Real Estate Practice Groups closed on a $55-million loan facility for a full-service flexible packaging converter.
In a negotiation that included three sets of lenders’ counsel, Saul Ewing’s Business and Real Estate Practice Groups closed on a significantly revised $55-million loan facility for the firm’s client, a full-service flexible packaging converter. The transaction involved real estate and manufacturing facilities in New York, Wisconsin, and Iowa, and corporate issues under Pennsylvania law.
- We negotiated documentation for a health services provider outsourcing the construction and monitoring of a new fiber optic ring.
Saul Ewing negotiated the outsourcing contracts for construction and monitoring of a new fiber optic ring for our client, a provider of health services. This new system connects several facilities, enabling our client to better transport medical data electronically.
- Saul Ewing’s Real Estate and Litigation attorneys successfully settled our client’s Mt. Laurel housing claim against a New Jersey municipality.
Our client, a real estate developer, owned a parcel of land since 1957 and had attempted to develop the site for more than 30 years. In 1975, our client entered into a joint venture to develop a 185-unit senior citizen affordable housing community. Our Real Estate Practice Group, with the assistance of our Litigation Practice Group, litigated for four years, finally obtaining a zoning change from a two-acre zone allowing 23 homes to a new zone allowing the 185-unit senior citizen development.
- We negotiated a new global services agreement with multiple locations and varied business needs.
A client whose business depends on landline telecommunications services for receipt of its customer’s orders asked us to negotiate a new global services agreement covering its multiple locations and varied business needs. We concluded negotiations within a time frame that allowed our client to finalize its new agreement within targeted and economically beneficial milestones.
- Attorneys in our Real Estate Practice Group helped a land conservancy protect a floodplain when an easement holder tried to expand a driveway running through conservancy land.
We represent a charitable organization that works cooperatively with landowners to conserve land in Chester County, Pennsylvania.
When an easement holder with a driveway running through conservancy property wanted to double the width of the driveway, our client opposed the expansion. The Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania held that the Zoning Hearing Board of the township properly denied the request, finding in favor of our client.
- We successfully renegotiated significant lease and IRU agreements on behalf of a landowner despite bankruptcy filing.
When a fiber company filed for bankruptcy, we renegotiated significant lease and IRU agreements on behalf of a landowner. Despite the bankruptcy, our client gained new conduit and fiber cable rights of added value.
- Our Real Estate and Tax Practice Groups closed a transaction for our client and two other organizations, in which we restructured ownership interests in a group of five Philadelphia-area hotels.
On behalf of a hospitality industry client, attorneys from our Real Estate and Tax Practice Groups worked together to close a complex transaction in which we restructured ownership interests in a group of five Philadelphia-area hotels with a total value of more than $85 million. In addition to our client, the transaction involved entities controlled by the Pennsylvania State Employees Retirement System and Legg Mason Real Estate Services.
For the transaction, we negotiated loans totaling $55 million from a large finance corporation and developed a tax strategy that provides substantial tax-deferral savings to both buyer and seller.
- We successfully helped defend a competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC) against an emergency petition before a local public service commission.
When an incumbent carrier threatened an embargo of services, claiming non-payment of bills for terminating traffic, a competitive local exchange carrier’s in-house counsel called on Saul Ewing Telecommunications attorneys for support. Our attorneys won an injunction and, in the process, provided the local public service commission with such valuable insights into the merits of the CLEC’s position that the commission also agreed to consider regulatory reforms beneficial to our client to address ongoing issues between the parties.
- Our Real Estate Practice assisted in the rebirth of a former naval shipyard as a commercial business center, representing the development corporation in negotiations to bring one of the world's leading commercial shipbuilders to the historic facility.
When a naval shipyard that had been instrumental to the nation's defense over the past century closed in the 1990s, a development corporation [Philadelphia Shipyard Development Corp.] was formed by the yard's home city and state to attract new business to the enormous facility. One item on the corporation's wish list was to continue the shipyard's seagoing heritage by bringing in a commercial shipbuilder to take over a significant portion of the space. When one of the world's leading builders of cruise and cargo ships agreed to construct a state of the art shipbuilding facility at the site, one of our Real Estate attorneys represented the development corporation, a conduit that monitors the project and distributes city and state funds to the shipbuilder. The new shipyard focuses on the design and construction of containership and crude product tankers for fleet replacement. Recently, the first commercial ship produced at the facility sailed out of the yard, beginning a maiden voyage that would take it through the Panama Canal and on to Hawaii.
- We negotiated the purchase of a 400-site, multi-state wireless system.
Our client, a national wireless carrier, sought to purchase a 400-site, multi-state system from a fierce competitor. We negotiated the purchase, conducted due diligence and closed the transaction in three months.
- Attorneys in our Telecommunications Group helped a national tower company acquire 110 towers in five states.
When our client, a major national tower company sought to acquire 110 towers in five states and in various stages of completion, our attorneys provided critical advice and analysis on zoning law, tax, and environmental issues under strict time and budget constraints.
- We assembled a multi-disciplinary team to guide our client through the purchase of a bankrupt competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC).
Our client is a new local telephone company. When the client decided to purchase the telecommunications assets of a bankrupt competitive local exchange carrier, attorneys from our Telecommunications Practice Group and Bankruptcy and Restructuring Department worked together to guide the client through the high-value purchase. We then assisted the client with numerous coordinated filings with public utility commissions throughout the Mid-Atlantic. When a competitor set up roadblocks in the approval process, our attorneys helped the client fend off the challenges successfully.
- Our attorneys have obtained municipal approvals for hundreds of towers and collocation antenna sites.
Saul Ewing's zoning attorneys on behalf of virtually every major cellular, personal communities service, and tower company's that do business in the Mid-Atlantic region have obtained municipal approvals for hundreds of towers and collocation antenna sites throughout Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland and Delaware.
