Departments: Corporate: Real Estate

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Walter McCabe, Practice Group Head
Harvard Law School, 1986
800-951-4888 x7231
walter.mccabe@ropesgray.com

How big is our practice group?
25 lawyers (6 partners, 1 counsel and 18 associates). Some of our associates are highlighted below:

Jack Creedon (Boston College Law School '04) is negotiating property management, construction management and leasing services agreements on behalf of a private equity client for office and retail projects in the Midwest. Jack recently assisted a private equity client with the acquisition of a pool of distressed commercial mortgage loans from a leading national bank. The loans were secured by retail, office and hotel properties throughout the country. He also recently worked on a joint venture with an international hotel operator to acquire ten Hilton hotels in major cities across Europe.

Dan Stanco (St. John's University School of Law '05) represents developers, investment banks and investment funds on real estate transactions ranging from purchases and sales of commercial properties, office buildings and asset portfolios to real estate finance, joint ventures, equity investments and leasing. He recently represented several international investors in connection with their acquisition, financing and leasing of properties in New York City and other major U.S. cities. Dan also devotes a substantial portion of his time to pro bono matters, including the development of a charter school in Brooklyn and representing various charitable foundations supported by the United Nations and the Clinton Global Initiative.

Carlye Murphy (Harvard Law School ’05) is helping a portfolio company acquire real and leased property in the U.S., Europe and Asia in connection with a large asset purchase transaction, and is also negotiating an office/warehouse lease for a charitable organization planning to relocate its headquarters to Boston. Over the past year, Carlye was part of a team representing the purchaser in a complex $1 billion bankruptcy asset sale of a global telecommunications company, working on all real estate aspects of the transaction, from performing the diligence to preparing the stalking horse bid to negotiating the transfer of real estate around the world.

Edward M. Thomas (Boston College Law School, 2007) is working on the acquisition of a chain of over 70 hotels out of bankruptcy, including performing zoning and environmental diligence on each property, as well as reviewing all mortgages and other liens encumbering the hotels. Ed recently counseled a client on the sale of a pharmaceutical manufacturing facility in the Midwest. Ed also represents secondary purchasers of equity interests in major private equity and real estate investment funds. During his time at Ropes & Gray, Ed completed a one-year secondment with the Massachusetts Port Authority, where he worked on a variety of environmental and real estate matters.

What do we do?
We apply a rare combination of sophisticated real estate, finance and environmental expertise to provide practical, innovative solutions to a variety of real estate-based matters. Our clients include investment funds, private equity firms, operating companies and educational and health care institutions – these clients invest in, finance, develop, own and lease real estate around the world. We also devote significant pro bono efforts to the development of Pave Academy (a charter school in Brooklyn) and the expansion of Codman Academy (a charter school in Boston).

What have we done lately?

Represented a hedge fund in a joint venture with an international hotel operator to acquire ten Class A Hilton hotels from Morgan Stanley in city-centers across Europe, including in Barcelona, Brussels, Dusseldorf, Luxembourg, Paris and Zurich. The acquisition, which was noted in The Wall Street Journal, involved a complex restructuring of the portfolio debt held by Barclays Capital. For a description of an associate’s role in the transaction, click here.

Represented various real estate investor clients, including Harvard Management Company, Stanford Management Company, Citigroup, BayNorth Capital, and The Baupost Group in evaluating, negotiating and structuring numerous joint venture arrangements with international, national, regional and local operators and developers.

Represented one of two settling defendants responsible for the investigation and cleanup of the Industriplex Superfund Site in Woburn, Mass, one of the earliest entries on the National Priorities List. The case involved defense of government cost recovery and Natural Resource Damage claims; negotiation of remedy selection decisions reached by the U.S. EPA; and exploration of the possibility of siting renewable energy generation facilities (principally, solar) on otherwise unusable portions of this former pesticide and glue manufactory.

Represented an Ivy League university in its role as joint venture investor in the purchase of two off-campus student housing developments with a total of 910 beds near the University of California at Santa Barbara. The Wall Street Journal named the transaction the “Deal of the Week” for the first week of September, 2010. For a description of an associate’s role in the transaction, click here.
Represented a charter school in connection with the acquisition, development, financing and lease of a new 40,000 square foot elementary school in Brooklyn, NY. The deal involved extensive negotiations with the developer, the New York City School Construction Authority, and the New York State Department of Education.