Real Estate

Wildman Harrold’s real estate practice is a geographically diverse practice, representing local and national clients in all types of real estate transactions throughout the country. Our practice is focused primarily on representing institutional and developer clients who acquire, develop and operate a full spectrum of industrial, office, mixed-use, retail and residential projects, including suburban and urban new developments and redevelopments. Our attorneys advise our clients on all phases of a development, including structuring and negotiating the acquisition and financing, obtaining governmental approvals and incentives, coordinating due diligence review, and closing the deal. After an acquisition has occurred, we continue to provide services to our clients on matters such as construction, development, management, leasing, refinancing, and sale. We negotiate construction and design agreements and provide counseling in construction and real estate-related disputes. Our attorneys represent clients in the environmental remediation and re-development of Brownfield properties and are highly regarded for addressing controversial and complex land use and zoning cases. We have experience involving a wide range of real estate-related issues, including problems that arise in bankruptcy workouts and mechanics' liens, complex litigation, as well as environmental and land use, including remediation of contaminated properties and redevelopment. 

• Every year, we represent nationally recognized retail and industrial developers in the development of millions of square feet of projects.
• Represented a publicly traded fund of a large diversified real estate company in acquiring, through various entities, a 95 percent interest in a portfolio of 41 industrial properties in the Chicago metropolitan area. We negotiated and structured a joint venture agreement and an acquisition agreement with the seller, which was the largest owner, manager and developer of industrial real estate in metropolitan Chicago and itself a publicly traded U.S. REIT; and negotiated the acquisition financing terms, including interest rate swaps and currency hedges, and CMBS loan documents for this $400 million deal.
• Represented a global automation, controls and process solutions company in negotiating a multi-site bonded sale-leaseback arrangement with extensive negotiations involving investor representatives.
• We regularly negotiate all aspects of industrial and office property sale and lease agreements, as well as the resolution of various fee and leasehold issues with multi-billion dollar transaction values.
• Represented a large pharmaceutical company, in engineering a package of governmental incentives from the State of Illinois consisting of employee training funds, income tax benefits and grants totaling up to $8 million. Coincident with the incentives, we represented our client in connection with a major amendment of its lease to expand its existing office space that ultimately will allow the company to occupy the entire 255,000 square foot, Class A building.
• Represented a joint venture in a highly complex acquisition, financing, and redevelopment of the top 17 floors of the landmark Shubert Theater in Chicago (now known as the LaSalle Bank Theater) into a Hampton Inn hotel.
• Represented a residential developer in the acquisition and financing of a series of three apartment complexes in Arizona which the client converted into condominiums. The work included negotiating and preparing purchase and sale and related documentation as well as complex acquisition, construction, and mezzanine financing documentation for loans totaling more than $145,000,000. 
• Represent Sauk Village in the development of a 400+ acre industrial park, which is intended to house 5 million square feet of building space and create 1,500 to 2,000 new jobs. Some of the issues involved in the regionally significant project include zoning, subdivision, Cook County real estate classification incentives, tax increment financing, and enterprise zone benefits.