Real Estate Acquisitions, Dispositions, and Development

Overview

Robinson+Cole handles transactions involving the acquisition or disposition of multiple parcels of property across all asset types—retail, office, hotel, industrial, medical, institutional, mixed use, research and development, biotech, and multifamily. In addition, our lawyers also regularly advise national, regional, and local developers in constructing and rehabilitating mixed-use, transit-oriented, and commercial and industrial properties, and multifamily housing complexes.

Our Services and Our Team

Acquisitions and Dispositions

We routinely work with our land use, construction, environmental, corporate, and tax colleagues to structure each transaction to meet our clients' needs, determining the most appropriate experience and staffing needed to best structure, execute, and then close the deal. Our lawyers and professional staff are equipped to handle all of the following:

  • the review of title documents, surveys, and title insurance commitments
  • the negotiation and drafting of real estate documents
  • the formation of business entities to address liability and tax issues
  • the investigation, analysis, and risk allocation of environmental matters
  • the due diligence and analysis required to obtain any federal, state, and local permits or approvals

Development

Our development lawyers provide a wide range of services to our developer clients that includes these services:

  • deal structuring
  • joint venture negotiation
  • acquisition documentation
  • financing
  • permitting and approval strategy and implementation
  • due diligence in all phases (physical, environmental, title, and existing permitting)
  • drafting and negotiating design and construction contracts

In all cases, we work with our colleagues across our offices in land use, construction, environmental, corporate, and tax to provide our developer clients with the highest level and most efficient legal advice and service.

    • Experience
      • Engaged by a Fortune 100 company to dispose of real estate consisting of parcels of unimproved land and two office buildings, together with negotiating leases in excess of 70,000 square feet for each of two new corporations resulting from a corporate divestiture and restructuring.
      • Represented borrower concerning land use, title, and construction advice in connection with financing for substantial expansion of resort hotel. Project included land acquisition and swaps, condominium amendment, partnership revisions, workout of existing notes payable, extensive title analysis, stock certification, due diligence, and negotiation of all loan documentation.
      • Sale by City of Hartford to the State of Connecticut and private developer of 680,000-square-foot former G. Fox Department Store building, also requiring negotiation and implementation of tax-fixing agreement and lease back of approximately 50,000 square feet. This project was one of former Governor John Rowland’s “Six Pillars of Progress” projects for the rejuvenation of the City of Hartford.

      • Serving as National Preferred Real Estate Counsel for United Technologies companies. These include Pratt & Whitney, Carrier, Otis Elevator, Sikorsky, and Hamilton Sundstrand. Recent completed transactions for UT include the purchase of a manufacturing and distribution facility in South Carolina; the sale of a manufacturing plant in Connecticut; the disposition and acquisition of commercial real estate located in California, Kansas, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Virginia; and assistance in complying with applicable Connecticut Transfer Act obligations in connection with a sale.

      • Represented the Southcoast Center for Cancer Care at Charlton Memorial Hospital regarding its construction of a new oncology center in Fall River, Massachusetts. The representation included drafting and negotiating a development/construction management agreement, the architectural design services contract, the construction contract based on the form AIA-A121 CMc and AIA-A201 general conditions, and a demolition contract. The oncology center opened to the public in 2009.

      • Represent an academic institution in connection with its relocation to a new 350-student campus to be built in conjunction with a private multifamily, 120-unit condominium. Representation includes drafting and negotiation of the purchase and sale agreement with the property owner and the joint venture agreement with the private real estate developer. Handling all due diligence, design, acquisition, permitting, and construction aspects of the transaction.

      • Represented the manufacturer of aggregate-based construction materials in the United States and United Kingdom, in drafting and negotiating purchase and sale agreement and all other sale documentation for 74,000 square feet of property in Worcester, Massachusetts, to CSX Transportation, Inc. Concurrently with that negotiation, handled client’s defense and all responses to eminent domain proceedings initiated by CSX through Department of Public Utilities to ensure that property acquisitions for new depot facility in Worcester would occur in a timely manner. Also represented property owner with drafting and negotiating purchase and sale agreement and all other sale documentation for 50,000 square feet of land in Saugus, Massachusetts, to Melrose Storage Facility. In addition, handled defense of zoning enforcement action for temporary storage uses during pendency of sale.

      • Representation of a real estate investment fund that specializes in acquiring mid- and small-cap real estate investment properties throughout the United States. Property types have included office, hotel, multifamily, and, most recently, health care-related office buildings. In one of its funds, we represented the client in closing on seven office properties. Sellers have included international and national REITs. Each office transaction is structured to be Sharia law-compliant.

      • Represented a private financial holdings company in connection with the disposition or redevelopment of property located at 300 to 310 Wilson Avenue in Norwalk, Connecticut. This representation included advice on local regulatory matters and a review of the permitting necessary for redevelopment.

    • Publications + Presentations
    • "Zoning Due Diligence, Zoning Opinions & Use of Zoning Endorsements," presented by Timothy C. Twardowski, addressed various perspectives of zoning and its due diligence at an open meeting of the Massachusetts Real Estate Bar Association's Commercial Real Estate Finance Section in Boston (3/6/2019)

Our Team

Members