REAL ESTATE

Full Service Real Estate Practice
We assist our clients in buying, selling, developing, permitting, financing, leasing, and operating real estate projects which are vital to New England’s social and economic environment.

Development Work
Our real estate development practice includes projects both large and small, complex and simple. We have particular expertise in guiding the following types of projects through the development process:

• Multifamily housing including condominiums, rental projects and affordable housing developments
• Educational institutions including charter schools
• Historic redevelopments
• Group homes
• Healthcare facilities
• Office, retail and commercial developments
• Senior living facilities

Real Estate Finance
We have significant experience representing lenders, investors and borrowers in both conventional and cutting-edge financing structures and are leaders in the New England area among counsel to institutional and quasi-public lenders for affordable housing projects. Our real estate finance experience on behalf of borrowers, lenders and investors includes:

• Commercial construction and permanent loans, and construction to permanent loans
• Tax-exempt bond financing
• New Markets Tax Credits
• MHP OneSource, Permanent Rental Housing and other programs
• MassDocs loans
• HUD & Federal Financing Bank Risk-Sharing loans
• Federal and state low income housing and historic tax credits
• HUD insured financing

Other Real Estate Transactions
We represent parties in all types of real estate transactions including:

• Acquisitions and dispositions
• Long term ground leases
• Net building leases
• Office, retail, research and development and industrial leases
• Condominium creation
• Public procurement
• Construction contracts
• Architects’ agreements
• Easements and restrictions
• Development and land disposition agreements
• Management agreements

Land Use and Permitting
We obtain the entitlements necessary for our clients’ use of their property, including:

• Zoning relief
• BPDA Article 80 large and small project, master plan and PDA approvals
• Rezonings
• Dover Amendment
• Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act (MEPA) compliance
• Massachusetts Historical Commission (MHC) compliance
• Wetlands/Conservation Commission approvals
• Other federal, state and local permits

We advise buyers and lenders in their due diligence reviews of land use and environmental permits obtained by others. We also represent owners, abutters and others in litigation involving land use and environmental permitting decisions.

Distressed Real Estate
Our distressed real estate practice includes representation of the following parties:

• Lenders seeking to modify or restructure troubled loans or pursuing real estate foreclosures.
• Managing partners in workouts of transactions involving limited partners with cancellation of indebtedness income.
• Owners in their efforts to work out securitized loans in default.
• Landlords pursuing bankrupt tenants.

Community Development and Public/Private Partnerships
Our firm’s commitment to community development and public agency law and nonprofit law informs our real estate practice. We are known for our representation of institutions, lenders and public agencies in real estate transactions involving affordable housing, education, health care and other social services, as well as large-scale, complex public/private projects.

Commercial Property Management
Our property management practice combines our strength in litigation with a common-sense, practical approach to everyday problems encountered by building owners and managers.

Conveyancing
We review titles for our real estate clients and often take the lead in resolving title issues. We are adept at sorting through complicated titles and using title insurance and other tools to address otherwise troublesome issues.

Real Estate Litigation
We represent clients in all aspects of real estate litigation, with a special focus on matters relating to commercial property management and real estate development including permitting, construction, partnership disputes, and tenant and borrower defaults.

Representative Projects:

• Development of affordable housing for seniors on a new lot created by subdivision of land improved with a 1984 building with 144 affordable apartments for seniors. We represented the owner in refinancing the existing building with HUD 223(f) insured financing, revising existing HUD and BPDA 121A regulatory agreements and drafting a cross easement agreement to permit the subdivision, and in developing the new building in compliance with applicable law.
• Development of a mixed income multifamily project with a ground floor restaurant on property ground leased from the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority adjacent to a north suburban train station, including negotiating a development agreement, a ground lease and financing documents with an equity investor and multiple lenders.
• Historic rehabilitation of a Brighton landmark located on state-owned parkland into retail, office and community uses. Our work included negotiating ground leases with the Commonwealth and closing New Markets Tax Credit financing and conventional construction to permanent debt and equity financing.
• Development of academic campuses in multiple Boston and other locations for a growing charter school client, including obtaining required zoning relief and closing tax-exempt bond financing and New Market Tax Credit financing.
• Redevelopment of a 24-acre Boston-area public housing site owned by the Boston Housing Authority, including the phased demolition of the existing structures, and phased construction over several years of fifteen new residential buildings containing approximately 2,600 affordable and market-rate units and significant commercial and community space. As counsel to the Housing Authority, our work includes structuring of the transaction with the developer, and drafting and negotiating a development agreement, covenants, easements and restrictions, and multiple ground leases.
• Development and financing of 24 residential townhouse condominium units (age restricted – 55 or older) in a north shore community, including two affordable units.
• Permitting of a 36-unit residential project in East Boston, including five affordable units, two of which are accessible.
• Sales, mergers and acquisitions relating to skilled nursing facility and rest home, for which we advised the owner on structure, due diligence and liability issues.
• Land assembly, street relocations, analysis of potential expansion sites, and easement and construction agreements with hotel, biotech developer and state instrumentalities relating to the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center and associated improvements.
• Corporate headquarters lease for a medical research firm, including office, laboratory, and research and development space.
• Addition of a new surgical center to an existing medical campus, requiring several modifications to existing financing structure and closing of new financing.
• Senior construction and permanent loans for affordable housing projects in Massachusetts and Connecticut which are also financed through subordinate public financing, low income housing tax credit equity, and historic tax credit equity.
• MassDocs financing for Massachusetts affordable housing projects.
• Multiple ground leases on behalf of Massachusetts public agencies.
• Redevelopment of a former medical lab, office and morgue building into a health care and respite facility for homeless individuals.
• Development and HUD and state and local financing of housing for homeless seniors in locations in Roxbury, Dorchester and Mattapan by Boston’s antipoverty agency.