Kilpatrick Townsend

Real Estate Investment & DevelopmentFrom The Ground Up

The real estate sector is among the most sensitive to economic shifts in the economy, with a history of booms followed by downturns and roaring comebacks. Kilpatrick Townsend’s Real Estate Investment & Development attorneys have helped real estate companies and corporate clients with real estate interests ride waves and weather inevitable storms. Our clients include owners and developers, corporations with large real estate holdings, investors, fund sponsors, and governmental agencies.

Reach

Broad Understanding

Our attorneys — including members of the American College of Real Estate Lawyers and the American College of Mortgage Attorneys — have experience in large, complex projects across all 50 U.S. states and all aspects of the industry.

Focus Areas

  • Acquisitions & Dispositions
  • Financing & Capital Formation Projects, including formation of joint ventures and other investment vehicles
  • Development & Redevelopment
  • Economic Incentives
  • Eminent Domain
  • Equity Investment
  • Fund Formation
  • Headquarters Relocation & Project Delivery
  • Leasing & Asset Management
  • Sale/Leaseback Transactions

Approach

A Deep Bench

We work closely with firm attorneys in other practice areas when their experience benefits our clients. This includes real estate as related to taxation (including REIT taxation), banking and private finance, joint ventures and other business organizations, securities regulation, creditors’ rights and debtors’ reorganization proceedings, environmental law, construction, and international investment.

Experience

Acted as primary national real estate counsel, while assisting Dilweg Companies with acquisitions, dispositions, and leasing throughout the U.S., including a $262 million acquisition of 11 office buildings in Georgia, Florida, and North Carolina.

Acted as outside real estate counsel for Duke University with property acquisitions, dispositions, and leasing, including a 100,000-square-foot office lease in a new office building to be constructed, a 75,000-square-foot office lease in an existing building, and the renovation of the university’s convention center located on campus in Durham, North Carolina.

Served as outside real estate counsel for Kane Realty Corporation with the development and leasing of over 2 million square feet of urban mixed-use development in North and South Carolina, including office, residential, and retail.

Acted as the exclusive nationwide leasing and real estate counsel for a publicly-traded open-source software company, including the negotiation of its 350,000-square-foot headquarters office facility in Raleigh, North Carolina and over 25 other office and R&D facilities across the country, including Los Angeles, Atlanta, Chicago, Boston, New York, and Dallas.

Represented of a Fortune 15 corporation with the acquisition, construction, and development of a transit-oriented office and retail development and other office developments in Atlanta, and subsequent sale/leaseback transactions valued at $1 billion.

Represented Avanti Properties Group in all portfolio investment activities for over $1.25 billion of institutional capital in real estate assets and development joint ventures nationwide.

Provided real estate counsel to a quick-serve restaurant chain with over 700 locations nationwide for the acquisition, ground leasing, and development of restaurants, distribution centers, and shopping centers involving more than 75 transactions around the country, including Alabama (Montgomery area), Arizona (Phoenix and Tucson), Arkansas (Little Rock area), Florida (Orlando, South Florida, and Tampa), Georgia (Atlanta area), Mississippi (Jackson area), Oklahoma (Oklahoma City), and Texas (Austin, Dallas, Houston, and Lubbock).

Represented BellSouth in the acquisition and development of three transit-oriented development projects in the City of Atlanta proximate to MARTA rail stations, totaling approximately 3.5 million square feet of space and remote parking decks at terminal MARTA rail stations, with a projected total cost of approximately $750 million.

Counseled major North American bank with the sale/leaseback of part of a mass transit rail system involving hundreds of parcels of real estate, including drafting leasehold security deed for lender.

Acted as primary national real estate counsel to one of the largest U.S. financial services company involving property acquisition, disposition, and leasing.

Represented AT&T in sale/leaseback transactions involving three major multibuilding assets in Atlanta, one over 500,000 square feet and another over 1,000,000 square feet.

Primary Contacts

John C. Livingston

Partner

Raleigh, NC

jlivingston@ktslaw.com