Commercial
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April 10, 2025
Lowenstein Sandler Doubling DC Office Space By Next Year
Lowenstein Sandler LLP will take over an entire floor in its current Washington, D.C., office building, doubling its footprint, to keep up with demand in the nation's capital, office managing partner Zarema A. Jaramillo told Law360 Pulse in an interview Thursday.
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April 10, 2025
Ready Capital Brass Face Suit Over Real Estate Loan Losses
Executives and directors of real estate finance company Ready Capital Corp. were hit with a shareholder derivative suit alleging they failed to disclose that the company's nonperforming commercial real estate loans were damaging its bottom line and would force it to take "aggressive action" to preserve its finances.
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April 10, 2025
Sullivan & Worcester Hires Fried Frank REIT Tax Pro
Sullivan & Worcester LLP announced Thursday that it has hired a Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson LLP partner, noting that the attorney comes to the firm with deep real estate investment trust tax expertise.
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April 10, 2025
NJ Panel Tosses Mall Owner's Bid To Spike Mixed-Use Project
A New Jersey appeals panel rejected a Newark shopping center owner's attempt to compel a builder to construct a parking garage instead of a mixed-use project on an adjacent property by citing a 2004 city plan.
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April 10, 2025
Del. Justices Urged To Revive Gellert Seitz Malpractice Case
A homebuilder is asking the Delaware Supreme Court to undo Gellert Seitz Busenkell & Brown LLC's win in a legal malpractice case over damages the builder says it suffered due to negligent representation in loan restructuring disputes with a bank.
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April 10, 2025
Sidley Snaps Up Cadwalader Real Estate Finance Team
Sidley Austin LLP recruited a team of real estate finance attorneys from Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft LLP, including the co-head of the firm's real estate financing group and three other partners, Law360 Real Estate Authority has learned.
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April 10, 2025
Blackstone Bolsters Warehouse Portfolio In $718M Texas Buy
Blackstone on Thursday announced it has agreed to buy a 6 million-square-foot portfolio of warehouse buildings in Dallas and Houston from Crow Holdings for $718 million in a bet on logistics during a time of market upheaval.
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April 09, 2025
Dechert Leaders Talk Commercial Mortgage-Backed Securities
After a few slow years, activity in the commercial mortgage-backed securities market has roared back to life, as investors, lenders and borrowers get comfortable with the new normal and find ways to get deals done, according to Laura Swihart and Stewart McQueen of Dechert LLP.
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April 09, 2025
NJ Will Pay $15M To Settle County's Casino Tax Break Lawsuit
Atlantic County and the state of New Jersey have reached a $15 million settlement over a dispute related to a property tax break program for casinos that the county argued unconstitutionally shifted the tax burden to its municipalities.
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April 09, 2025
FAU Research Park Looks To Bring Innovators To Boca
South Florida-based real estate private equity firm PEBB Enterprises and Banyan Development have tapped Colliers to handle leasing at a research office park connected to Florida Atlantic University, aiming to attract both startups and established businesses, particularly in technology and other innovative fields, to the recently upgraded facility.
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April 09, 2025
Ill. Real Estate Broker Gets 4 Years For $3M Investment Scam
A Chicago real estate broker has been sentenced to more than four years in prison after pleading guilty last year to allegations he duped clients into investing millions of dollars in properties that did not exist and then used the investors' funds for personal expenses, federal prosecutors announced Wednesday.
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April 09, 2025
Banks Back Private Credit's Rise. Should Borrowers Care?
Banks provide back-financing in most real estate private credit deals and often have a say on what happens when a loan goes bad, but attorneys have different opinions about whether borrowers should be tuned into what's going on with their debt behind the scenes.
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April 09, 2025
Colliers Says Q1 Atlanta Office Market Trends Toward Balance
Commercial broker Colliers said construction activity remained at its lowest level since 2011 in the first quarter as the overall vacancy rate rose slightly on a quarterly basis to 24.2% in Atlanta's office market.
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April 09, 2025
Mich. City Says Pot Co. Can't Challenge Rivals' Licenses
A Michigan city is urging a federal court to throw out a suit by a would-be dispensary alleging that the city violated state law and the Constitution when it awarded its cannabis licenses, saying the company does not have a property right to sell substances that are illegal under federal law.
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April 09, 2025
Miami Offices See Uptick, Despite Decline In Construction
The Miami office market got off to a positive start in 2025 after slowing down last year, although construction activity continued to decline in the sector, according to a new report from global real estate advisory firm Avison Young.
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April 09, 2025
Trade Policy Prompts Fla. 'Wait-And-See' Effect, CBRE Says
Commercial broker CBRE said firms in Jacksonville, Florida's industrial market may be taking a "wait-and-see approach" while digesting changes in trade policy, based on Q1 figures showing the market saw its first quarter of negative absorption since 2019.
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April 09, 2025
Blackstone Clinches $10.8B European Real Estate Fund
Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP-advised private equity giant Blackstone on Wednesday announced that it wrapped its latest European real estate fund with €9.8 billion ($10.8 billion) of total capital commitments.
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April 08, 2025
Expedia's Cuban Island Bookings Were Illegal, Jurors Told
A Cuban-American man who says he is the rightful heir to an island off the coast of Cuba that was seized by the Communist government told jurors Tuesday that Expedia illegally trafficked in stolen property by offering reservations for resorts on the island through its website.
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April 08, 2025
NY High Court Probes If State Emissions Cap Preempts City's
New York's highest court questioned Tuesday why the state Legislature did not explicitly state that it meant for a 2019 climate law to preempt a law regulating greenhouse gas emissions that New York City passed earlier that year, amid property owners' challenge to the city law.
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April 08, 2025
Univ. Of The Arts Gets Last Ch. 7 Property Sale Approved
Philadelphia's University of the Arts received the Delaware bankruptcy court's approval Tuesday for its sale of an historic building, the seventh and final real estate sale in the defunct school's Chapter 7 case.
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April 08, 2025
Cushman Atty Transitions In-House As Kidder Mathews GC
Kidder Mathews announced Monday that it has hired Edward Castro, a 30-year corporate attorney with experience in commercial real estate law, as general counsel advising the company and its 19 West Coast offices.
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April 08, 2025
House Panel Tallies Office Waste After DOGE, GSA Scrutiny
Republicans on a U.S. House committee cast the federal government's office footprint as costly, out of date and underused in a Tuesday hearing that came after a federal agency posted and then promptly removed a list of some 440 buildings it described as "non-core" last month.
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April 08, 2025
Contractor's Win In Insurance Fraud Suit Upheld By 6th Circ.
A Sixth Circuit panel affirmed Continental Building Co.'s defeat of a lawsuit that leveled insurance fraud claims at the general contractor, finding a subcontractor failed to trace its losses to Continental's claim that it defaulted on a contract.
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April 08, 2025
Mass. Board Upholds Town's Value Of Commerical Property
An owner of a commercial property in Massachusetts failed to produce comparable sales to substantiate reducing the property's valuation by more than $400,000, the state Appellate Tax Board ruled Tuesday.
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April 08, 2025
Design Co. Denied Exit From Hurricane Subrogation Suit
A design contractor facing a $4 million subrogation action over hurricane damage to commercial HVAC units at an Amazon sorting facility can't rely on notice requirements in Florida's construction defect law, Chapter 558, to argue the plaintiff insurers are statutorily barred from seeking reimbursement, a Florida federal court ruled.
Expert Analysis
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What Retail Landlords Must Know About Permitted Transfers
As trying economic times require tenants to create options to cease their operations by transferring their lease obligations to other parties, retail landlords must give significant thought to how permitted transfers are drafted, and how parties are to be protected in the present and the future, says Scott Grossfeld at Cox Castle.
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Proactive Measures While NY Foreclosure Law Is In Limbo
While questions about the scope and constitutionality of New York's Foreclosure Abuse Prevention Act might not be resolved by courts for years, lenders, borrowers and other interested parties can take action to protect their rights and potentially expedite appellate review, say Allison Schoenthal and Andrew Kim at Goodwin.
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EB-5 Investment Period Clarification Raises More Questions
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services' recent clarifying guidance for EB-5 investors, specifying that the statutory investment period begins two years from the date of investment, raises as many questions as it answers given related agency requirements and investors' potential contractual obligations, says Daniel Lundy at Klasko Immigration Law Partners.
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A Guide For Landlords Pivoting To Medical Office Buildings
The current commercial real estate landscape presents a unique opportunity for landlords, real estate developers and investors to accommodate the growing health care industry's need for office buildings, though proper navigation of complex regulations and leasing concerns is necessary, says Mehdi Sinaki at Michelman & Robinson.
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NY Co-Ops Must Avoid Pitfalls When Navigating Insurance
In light of skyrocketing premiums, tricky exclusions and dwindling options, New York cooperative corporations must carefully review potential contractors' insurance policies in order to secure full protection, as even seemingly minor contractor jobs can carry significant risk due to New York labor laws, says Eliot Zuckerman at Smith Gambrell.
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What To Consider When Converting Calif. Offices To Housing
In light of California legislators' recent efforts to expedite the process for converting offices into residential buildings, developers should evaluate both the societal upsides, and the significant economic and legal hurdles, of such conversions, says Steven Otto at Crosbie Gliner.
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Ch. 12 Ruling Is A Helpful Addition To Interest Rate Case Law
In its recent In re: Topp ruling, the Eighth Circuit addressed the question of which rate of interest debtors should pay under a bankruptcy plan, showing that the choice of interest rate plan is a factual issue subject to appellate review for clear error, and not a legal issue subject to de novo review, says Donald Swanson at Koley Jessen.
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Appellate Rulings Highlight Telecom Standard Uncertainties
Two recent contrasting appellate opinions in Cellco v. White Deer Township and NMSurf v. Webber — interpreting Sections 332 and 253 of the Communications Act, respectively — demonstrate the continuing uncertainty carriers face when challenging state and local requirements that may impede their provision of telecommunications services, say attorneys at Davis Wright.
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How Investors Can Seize Renewables Opportunities In RE
As governments and stakeholders increasingly focus on sustainability in the real estate sector, investors could capture significant upside by implementing an operational real estate strategy focused on renewable energy sources, say attorneys at Goodwin.
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Insurance Cos. Are Stretching Construction Standard Limits
In the construction sector, the importance of closely vetting downstream parties' insurance policies has never been more critical — owners and general contractors need to be on the lookout for ever broader carrier-specific expansions of standard insurance provisions that are perilous for risk transfer, says Eric Clarkson at Saxe Doernberger.
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Potential WeWork Bankruptcy May Disrupt Coworking Spaces
If WeWork files for bankruptcy, as hinted at in its recent quarterly earnings report, landlords may struggle to take over management of WeWork's coworking spaces, but the coworking industry as a whole is showing some promise in adapting to the market's evolving post-pandemic office needs, says Ann Chandler at Hall Estill.
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A Cautionary Tale Of Flawed Debt Accounting And SEC Fines
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's recent improper-accounting charges against Malvern Bancorp and its ex-CFO highlight crucial practice issues, including the need to objectively evaluate borrowers' credit, say attorneys at Arnold & Porter.
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Bat's Newly Endangered Status Likely To Slow Development
A recent change in the classification of the northern long-eared bat from "threatened" to "endangered" could have significant effects on development in large portions of the Eastern and Southeastern U.S. — and in the absence of straightforward guidelines, developers will have to assess each project individually, says Peter McGrath at Moore & Van Allen.