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Capabilities / Retail Real Estate

Retail Real Estate

Gaining the advantage.

Husch Blackwell helps clients capitalize on retail market opportunities by helping clients find and implement the right strategies to maximize their portfolios. Whether clients are leasing, developing, redeveloping, acquiring, or selling retail centers, our team has the broad experience and the bandwidth to bring the client’s goals to fruition. Our team also has expertise in zoning, land use, and environmental risk management, as well as project financing through traditional mechanisms or by tapping into local, state, and federal development incentives and tax credits.

Our deep understanding of retail real estate enables us to quickly zero in on clients’ needs and deliver solutions that drive growth. REITs, retail property owners, big-box stores, franchise concepts, and startup businesses rely on Husch Blackwell’s fresh thinking and legal insights to advance their business objectives.

Our guidance to clients in the retail real estate sector includes:

  • Financing
  • Franchise and distribution
  • Government affairs
  • Incentive programs, sweepstakes, rebates and promotions
  • Intellectual property
  • Labor and employment
  • Lease portfolio management
  • Mergers, acquisitions and other strategic transactions
  • Regulatory and compliance
  • Supplier agreements
  • Taxation

Representative Experience

  • Guided H&R Block in the acquisition of all franchise locations in Oklahoma and more than half in Texas from the company’s largest franchisee, who intended to sell.
  • Represented REIT in redevelopment of a large retail space in a Wisconsin mall. Redevelopment required a major alteration to the mall’s existing conditional use approval, and our team coordinated the land use approval process with the city. The project was unanimously approved by the city’s Urban Design Commission and Plan Commission.
  • Helped Denver’s Regional Transportation District structure a public-private partnership of CDOT and RTD funds, developer equity, historic tax credits, and construction financing in order to redevelop Union Station. The station houses Denver’s AMTRAK station, a 110-room hotel, restaurant and retail space, and a 12,000-square-foot great hall.
  • Represented Raven Development in the redevelopment of Northwest Plaza Shopping Center in Missouri, at one time the largest mall in the country. Negotiated the acquisition of the vacant mall, as well as leasing and sale transactions, and assisted our client in arranging financing for the $106 million, multiphase project and in securing significant federal, state and local incentives.
  • Assisted joint venture between Minneapolis-based Sherman Associates Inc. and Loftworks LLC of St. Louis with the acquisition, financing, and redevelopment details of the redevelopment of the historic St. Louis’s Syndicate Trust Building, an $86 million project. The building became a mix of retail space, affordable housing, market-rate apartment units, for-sale condominium units and parking.
  • Represented commercial real estate firm Sansone Group in the nearly $32 million sale of Buzz Westfall Plaza in north St. Louis, a 370,000-square-foot center anchored by retail, to a private real estate investment firm. The deal was complicated by the development’s location in the middle of civil unrest in that part of St. Louis during the transaction.
  • Represented commercial real estate firm Sansone Group in its $18 million acquisition of the Towne South Plaza shopping center in Terre Haute, Indiana.
  • Represented client in the development of a Chick-fil-A restaurant. The property required consents of major big box retailers, lenders, and the requirements of Chick-fil-A corporate.
  • Structured joint venture between a major investment bank and a regional developer to acquire two shopping centers containing 450,000 square feet of retail space valued at $100 million.
  • Represented a multi-family developer in securing entitlements and negotiating agreements in connection with a multi-family housing development being developed in connection with a retail center anchored by CVS valued at $70 million.
Media Mentions | January 29, 2021
Hamilton County Herald: Husch Blackwell welcomes four
News Releases | October 30, 2019
JP Croake Joins Husch Blackwell's Madison Office

Croake's corporate practice focuses on helping businesses – from startups to established companies – at all stages of growth. 

News Releases | October 07, 2019
Two Husch Blackwell Associates Selected for AdvanceLaw Diversity Mentorships

AdvanceLaw, a collective of over 250 corporate legal departments that helps member companies find and retain outside counsel by vetting law firms and sharing feedback, launched the program earlier this year.

Media Mentions | May 10, 2019
Milwaukee Business Journal: A Budding Industry
News Releases | May 08, 2019
Husch Blackwell's Retail Team Recognized as Industry "Influencer"

Husch Blackwell’s Retail practice group was honored by Real Estate Forum in part for the 2017 creation of its Retail Institute.

Husch Blackwell has provided us with excellent and experienced legal representation in sophisticated transactions.

Chief Legal Officer