Real Estate Section

See the Big Picture.

Real estate plays a major role in the life of your business. Whether or not real estate is your core business, it’s the location where your team makes it all happen, and is a vital component of your operation. It takes time, energy, and resources to manage.

Mintz Levin has represented clients in sophisticated, large-scale real estate, acquisition, disposition, development, financing, and leasing transactions for over 25 years. We combine professional skill with practical judgment and political acumen to advance clients' real estate interests. We take a multidisciplinary approach to solving your business issues, calling upon attorneys and resources from other practice areas within the firm as necessary. Those practice areas may include tax, environmental, communications, health law, life sciences (biotechnology), energy and clean technology, and corporate.

Focused Service, Broad Expertise

Principal areas in which Mintz Levin provides real estate representation include, but are not limited to:

With nearly 45 attorneys and senior professionals, our extensive real estate experience includes analyzing and structuring complex deals, coordinating projects of significant scope and complexity, providing strong negotiation throughout the acquisition, disposition, and  development process, plus a range of other real estate matters and transactions throughout the US and internationally.

We represent owners, developers, lenders, tenants and landlords, as well as investors in and users of:

• Commercial and residential properties, including office and industrial buildings, multi-family communities, shopping centers and other retail projects
• Congregate, assisted-living, and continuing care retirement communities
• Energy and clean technology sites
• Hospitals, nursing homes and other healthcare facilities
• Hotels
• Industrial and research and development (R&D) facilities
• Recreational communities and large scale golf course and country club facilities
• Residential rental and condominium properties, including so-called “40B” developments. 
• Technology-oriented properties such as biotechnology, laboratory, R&D, and telecommunications facilities

Mintz Levin’s real estate clients include “core-plus” and “value-add” real estate funds, public agencies, developers, syndicators, and financial institutions involved in the development, financing, and ownership of all real estate asset classes of multifamily housing. We represent developers  of major urban mixed-use projects, large regional shopping malls and retail “power” centers, and public and private corporations with facilities around the world. In addition, we represent telecommunications service providers and building owners in leasing, licensing, and related transactions.

Representative Real Estate Experience

Case Example A:

CVS

The example of Mintz Levin’s work with CVS aptly illustrates the breadth of skills we bring to our clients. Over the past several years, Mintz Levin has served as national counsel on all of CVS’ complex sale leaseback transactions, involving over 2,000 retail properties located in 30 states around the country with an aggregate value in excess of $7 billion. Our sale leaseback team is comprised of ten real estate and environmental partners, associates, and paraprofessionals. We have also served as national coordinating counsel for CVS on hundreds of real estate acquisitions across the country. We call upon the combined resources of our 50-person real estate and environmental department, as well as the firm’s tax lawyers, commercial lawyers, and securities lawyers when the need arises.

Case Example B:

Manulife Financial

Our Mintz Levin/ML Strategies team worked successfully with Canada-based Manulife Financial to develop, obtain permits for, and construct its US operations headquarters, a 470,000 sq. ft. complex on a ground lease with the Massachusetts Port Authority (Massport) in the Seaport District of Boston. The project required city, state, and federal approvals, and due to its proximity to Logan International Airport, issues related to funding for the adjacent roadway system, and to environmental and general development and permitting issues, the project required the approval of the FAA, the State and Federal Highway Administration, CA/T, the MBTA, the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, the Massachusetts Housing Department, DEP, and other state and city regulatory agencies. In addition, our attorneys negotiated complex agreements with the MBTA to address the Silver Line, which runs through the building.

Case Example C:

Battery Wharf

Mintz Levin/ML Strategies represented our client in connection with the acquisition of a partially-permitted mixed-use 150 room hotel, 100 unit residential condominium, and retail and parking garage project on Battery Wharf in Boston’s North End. The team successfully strategized to maintain the validity of various permits set to expire, and to amend the Chapter 91 License to restructure the development program into a financially feasible project. In addition, we negotiated the hotel management contract, the construction contract, and advised on community benefits. Our attorneys and consultants also handled a complex three-tier financing and developed a unique condominium structure to permit “sale” of parking spaces in a precedent-setting deal in Massachusetts. The project is currently under construction.

Public Sector Experience in Institutional Master Planning

ML attorneys and ML Strategies consultants have senior-level public management experience in large, complex master planning projects. A representative list of institutions/projects includes:

Major Ground-Up Commercial Developments
Developer/User Representation

• Cambridge Center, Cambridge, MA - Multi-phased 2,500,000 sq.ft. mixed-use office/R&D/hotel/retail 
• 9/90 Crossing, Framingham, MA - Multi-phased 1,400,000 sq.ft. office/R&D
• 599 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY - 1,100,000 sq.ft. office
• Exchange Place, Boston, MA - 1,100,000 sq.ft. office                          
• Biogen Facility, Cambridge, MA - Multi-phased 650,000 sq. ft. office/R&D campus
• Silver City Galleria, Taunton, MA - 1,100,000 sq.ft. regional shopping center
• Devonshire Towers, Boston, MA - 40-story mixed-use office/residential
• Medical City, Worcester, MA - Mixed-use hospital/clinic/offices
• Gateway Shopping Center, Everett, MA - 640,000 sq.ft. retail power center
• Berkshire Mall, Lanesboro, MA - Regional shopping center
• Independence Mall, Kingston, MA - Regional shopping center

ML Strategies, LLC

Mintz Levin’s consulting affiliate, ML Strategies, LLC, works closely with our real estate professionals to provide strategic planning and professional services in government, community and media relations, crisis communications, and on environmental and healthcare issues. Collaborative teams of attorneys and the professionals of ML Strategies afford clients a breadth of integrated experience not traditionally available from a single law firm. In short, ML Strategies is unique and offers our clients a competitive edge. From offices in Boston and Washington, D.C., MLS is a specialized consulting firm—staffed by senior-level team members—that helps clients deal with complexity, provides informed stewardship, anticipates potential areas of vulnerability, manages fallout, and builds constituency.

Subprime Practice Group Formed

Responding to an increasing demand from clients seeking guidance on the legal complexities associated with the collapse of the subprime lending market, Mintz Levin has formed a dedicated Subprime Practice Group. The group taps into the expertise of more than two dozen attorneys across multiple offices and practice areas including litigation, securities, bankruptcy and restructuring, structured finance, governmental investigations, insurance coverage, white collar crime, and real estate. 

Fallout from the collapse of the subprime market is becoming increasingly widespread and the reverberations will continue to be felt for some time. From investigations by government authorities to claims against directors and officers to bankruptcy, the firm has already seen a growing demand from businesses and individuals seeking advice related to a range of complex issues stemming from the situation.  By forming a dedicated subprime practice group, Mintz Levin brings to bear the deep expertise of attorneys from across the firm to serve clients with a coordinated, multi-disciplinary approach.

Please click here for a pdf of our Subprime Practice Group brochure.

Representative Pro Bono Work

• The firm's close partnership with the Mississippi Center for Justice continued into its third year after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. Mintz Levin attorneys from various offices contributed to the firm's wide scope of work in Mississippi. Our attorneys assisted with foreclosure issues, provided strategic advice concerning Mississippi's disbursement of the post-Katrina federal housing assistance, and handled FEMA appeals.
• Mintz Levin has served the tenants association of Tivoli Towers, a housing complex in Brooklyn, NY, as pro bono legal counsel for over two years, working to ameliorate poor living conditions and improve the run-down apartment complex. The firm has been successful in obtaining a financial review of the landlords books and records to make sure that funds obtained from recent rent increases are used for improvements to Tivoli Towers and not to the landlord’s other properties. In addition, when a recent robbery occurred at the complex, Mintz Levin attorneys notified the landlord and obtained improved security in the building.
• In a Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) case, Mintz Levin attorneys authored an amicus curiae brief on behalf of the Citizens Housing and Planning Association, MassHousing, and the Massachusetts Housing Partnership—three leading organizations devoted to the construction and financing of affordable housing in MA. The case was important to the entire affordable housing community due to its implications for the subsidy programs under which such housing in MA is most commonly financed. A victory by the municipality would have thrown the status of 14,000+ subsidized units into doubt while eliminating the principal funding source for pending and future Chapter 40B projects, thereby drastically reducing subsidized housing production statewide. On July 20, 2007, the SJC issued a decision that not only rejected the town’s argument but, as requested by Mintz Levin, also rejected language in the Appeals Court’s decision that had construed quite narrowly what constitutes a valid Chapter 40B subsidy in general.