Affordable Housing and Community Development

Experience

• Advise multifaceted real estate company regarding the structuring, financing, redevelopment and preservation of RAD conversion projects. The transactions were structured to facilitate the greatest leveraging of public funds with private financing sources, including maximization of available equity from the syndication of LIHTC. Financing was obtained through the issuance of tax-exempt bonds, secondary financing from the housing authority and utilization of certain tax benefits, such as a PILOT agreement.
• Developer counsel in the negotiation and closing of a purchase and development agreement (with different kinds of debt and equity) with the United States General Services Administration (GSA) for a mixed-use, 42-acre property in Washington, DC, next to the baseball stadium.
• Senior bondholder representative counsel in the workout of a defaulted bond financed loan for a low-income housing tax credit project located in Richmond, Virginia, in which the bondholder acquired a general partnership interest in the owner and additional tax credit investor equity capital in lieu of pursuing a mortgage foreclosure.
• Developer counsel for many affordable housing transactions across the country utilizing multiple tranches of debt and equity financing, including LIHTC equity, HOME and CDBG loans, AHP funds, TIF, HTCs and energy grants. Served as developer counsel in closing a series of transactions utilizing a new structure to preserve existing Section 8-subsidized projects involving restructuring of existing HUD-held debt, tax-exempt bond financing, LIHTC equity, and subordinate municipal financing, which may also include TIF and bridge financing.
• NMTC community development entity and developer counsel on multiple NMTC transactions throughout the United States. Serve as counsel to a nonprofit educational institution in Chicago in the development of athletic facilities using NMTC equity and as counsel to a nonprofit developing a mixed-use project in Washington, DC, providing nonprofit office space and housing for victims of domestic violence.
• Developer counsel in HUD regulatory and compliance issues on a nationwide basis, including Section 8 contract renewals, rent adjustments, approval of property transfers, allowable distributions and equity take-outs, fair housing and accessibility issues, transfers of physical assets, 2,530 previous participation clearances, 202 project transfers and loan subordinations.
• Lender counsel in a variety of construction and permanent loan transactions across the United States involving LIHTCs and HTCs—including workouts, foreclosures and recapitalizations. Lender counsel in closing a restructuring and recapitalization of a $1.4 billion, 3,700-acre master-planned community in Orange County, California.
• Lender counsel in refinancing a portfolio of 30 affordable, multifamily housing projects located in five states. The refinancing involved 30 separate municipal bond transactions totaling $171 million and included tax-exempt and taxable bonds and associated derivative products.
• Lender counsel to an agency lender and several national banks providing credit enhancement for multifamily housing bond transactions. Serve as counsel to sponsors in the securitization of more than $3 billion of tax-exempt and taxable multifamily housing bonds through an agency lender program and credit enhancement programs. Lender counsel assisting lenders in obtaining agency lender licenses and approvals. Provide ongoing advice on regulatory and compliance issues.
• Bond counsel in numerous placements of tax-exempt bonds involving a wide range of facilities and projects (multifamily housing, continuing care facilities, medical offices, airports and port facilities).
• Public Housing Authority representation in mixed-finance transactions involving public housing capital grants, HOME funds and TIF. Includes counsel in four large mixed-finance transactions and as trustee counsel in bond issuances, in which HUD receipts were pledged as security for the payment of the bonds.
• Represented a large national bank as construction lender for the development of a $120 million mixed-use, commercial retail/apartment project in Chicago, which will include 110,000 (rentable) square feet of commercial/retail space anchored by a grocery store, and 180 apartment units, including 36 affordable housing units in a project that includes TIF with a redevelopment agreement with a city government.
• Tax credit investor counsel and developer counsel in investments in numerous 80/20 mixed-income apartment and multi-use projects in California, New York and Washington, DC. Developer counsel in more than 75 high-rise 80/20 and mixed-use projects in Manhattan and elsewhere in New York City, including $1.2 billion construction financing for three towers between West 59th and West 61st streets, $539 million construction financing on West 42nd Street, $470 million financing in the Hudson Yards area, $407 million financing in Midtown West, and permanent construction financing on West 38th Street. Individual matters involve the New York State HFA issuing tax-exempt bonds and taxable bonds that are credit-enhanced by a letter of credit from an international bank, LIHTCs, 421-a real property tax exemptions, and floor area bonuses pursuant to the Inclusionary Zoning Program of the City of New York.
• Represented Starrett City Associates, as seller, and Brooksville Company LLC and Rockpoint Group LLC, as purchasers, in the $905 million sale of Spring Creek Towers (formerly called Starrett City), the largest federally subsidized housing development in the United States.
• Represent various real estate developers in the financing and development of mixed-income multifamily projects in the Long Island City, East Harlem and Jamaica neighborhoods of New York City. Each project will be one of the largest apartment projects in its respective neighborhood. These transactions are structured to facilitate the generation and potential syndication of LIHTCs.
• Represent strategic real estate development company in ground leasing more than one acre of land off Webster Avenue in the Bronx. Involves client demolishing the existing structures on the property, constructing a multifamily residential rental building with accompanying retail spaces, and operating the new development under a 99-year ground lease. This project will create 340 brand new, affordable housing units in a highly desirable area of the Bronx and showcases the client’s commitment to including a valuable resource to the community in the form of a neighborhood grocery store in an area lacking healthy, nutritious food options.
• Public-private representation, including of a residential and commercial real estate acquisition, development and management company, in financing a very large and impactful multifamily development in Long Island City, Queens. The project creates a public-private partnership between New York City and our client to create much-needed and difficult-to-develop affordable and workforce housing. Tax-exempt bonds will be issued to finance the affordable portion of the development, and the transaction will be structured to facilitate the generation and potential syndication of LIHTCs.
• Represent real estate developer in a 20-acre planned unit development in northeast Washington, DC. The redevelopment is expected to contain approximately 1,750 apartments (22 percent affordable) in multifamily buildings, seniors-only housing and row houses, plus approximately 180,000 square feet of retail space, including a 56,000-square-foot anchor grocery store along with community and open/green spaces. The years-long development process will require the coordination of zoning approvals, temporary relocation of tenants, attracting retail tenants, updating HUD contracts, obtaining private and public financing, providing community support programs, demolition of the existing structures and the phased construction of the new buildings.
• Counsel for a city government and state in connection with the workout of billions of dollars of defaulted loans in the Mitchell-Lama program through a HUD insurance program, specifically created through federal and state legislation to address the problem loan portfolio. *
• Represented various lenders, investors and owners with respect to debt and bond restructurings and workouts, REIT lease modifications, and project recapitalizations with specific emphasis on the tax implications of such transactions. *