Real Estate, Construction & Infrastructure

In a recent decision, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts (SJC) has held that a contractor seeking to enforce a lien dissolution bond under G.L. c. 254 § 14 need not record an attested to copy of its complaint with the Registry of Deeds. In City Electric Supply Co. v. Arch Insurance Co., the SJC vacated a decision of Norfolk Superior Court—refusing to apply the recording requirement of G.L. c. 254 § 5 to G.L. c. 254 § 14.

In the early 1980s, in an effort to generate much-needed revenue for the City of Boston to offset federal and state budget cuts, the Massachusetts Legislature passed legislation entitled, “An Act Establishing the City of Boston Funding Loan Act of Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Two and the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority” (the “Act”).

A recent article I co-authored and published in the New York Law Journal recaps and highlights the key takeaways in the federal district court’s decision in Cohen v. G&M Realty L.P. (E.D.N.Y, Feb. 18, 2018), relating to the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990 (VARA) and the street art on a group of buildings known as “5Pointz” in Long Island City, New York.

On July 27, 2017, the United Kingdom Financial Conduct Authority announced, without specifying a replacement, that it would phase-out the London Interbank Offer Rate (LIBOR) by the end of 2021. LIBOR, a rate measured by short-term borrowing among large banks, has for decades been the reference rate underlying trillions of dollars’ worth of global financial transactions.

Following the acquisition or financing of a property, most parties to the transaction are happy to circulate the “Congratulations!” missives as soon as the closing has occurred – the seller has their proceeds, the buyer/borrower has their property and/or the loan funds, and the prior financing(s) have been paid off.

Blockchains, best known as the technology behind digital currencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, are beginning to be implemented in a variety of commercial applications. The technology is attracting not only financial institutions and stock exchanges, but fields as disparate as the music, diamond, healthcare, insurance, and shipping industries.

California usury law is addressed in multiple places: the California Constitution, statutes, case law, and initiative measures. Due to the patchwork nature of this body of law, differing interpretations and ambiguity are commonplace.

Data centers are the twenty-first century nexus between the commercial real estate and telecommunication business sectors. Owners, operators and developers of data centers face the difficult task of continually adapting to the rapidly evolving priorities of their ever expanding clientele in order to remain competitive and appealing to the largest number of actual and potential consumers.

Enacted by Congress in 1930 and revised in 1984, the Perishable Agriculture Commodities Act (PACA) protects sellers of perishable agricultural commodities, defined as “fresh fruits and fresh vegetables of every kind and character whether or not frozen or packed in ice, and cherries in brine as defined by the Secretary of Agriculture” by subjecting a “merchant, dealer or broker” of perishable produce.

On February 12, 2018, President Donald Trump released his fiscal year 2019 budget proposal entitled “An American Budget.” Though Congress will not implement the proposal in its entirety, it still demonstrates what the Trump Administration would like to see prioritized in the coming year, which does not include climate change research.

Previously on this blog, my colleagues posed the question to commercial landlords, “Do you know who’s working in your building?” In this post, I look at a different aspect of the sharing economy—residential short-term rentals (STRs, for short)—and ask, “Do you know who’s living in your apartment?”

Our colleagues Susan Phillips, Stephen Friedberg and Andrew Dean wrote an article recently published on CFO.com. “Sale-Leasebacks: Cash Out but Keep Control” advises on how to recover capital spent on property acquisition and improvements while continuing to occupy and operate the property. The article has been attached below.

Co-working centers and shared office space arrangements have exploded onto the commercial real estate scene recently and offer attractive alternatives for many small businesses, early stage start-ups, incubators and freelancers to more traditional long-term office leases or work-from-home arrangements.

Drone use in the real estate industry has exploded in recent months. The utility of drones in sales, marketing, construction, surveying, and inspection of real property is undeniable.

Recently, Law360 published our colleague Andrew A. Dean’s follow up to his previous article, “Negotiating Exclusive Use Provisions in Retail Leases.” This new article discusses how to address “rogue tenants,” the enforcement of an exclusive and whether continuous operation clauses should factor into the exclusive use provision when negotiating a retail lease on behalf of a tenant.

We are thrilled to announce that our colleague Andrew A. Dean was published in Law360. His article focuses on the more frequently discussed provisions in a retail lease – the tenant exclusive.

On September 15th, Mintz Levin, Cresa, and BDO will be hosting a Panel Discussion and Networking Reception in San Diego, California on the new changes to lease accounting rules.

On April 15, 2016, the IRS released a memorandum addressing the impact of so-called “bad boy” guarantees on the characterization of underlying partnership debt as recourse vs. nonrecourse under Section 752 of the Internal Revenue Code.

Recently, our colleague Steve Friedberg published an article in AreaDevelopment on “Data Center Development and Financing Strategies”. Co-authored by Gregory Burkart and Laca Wong-Hammond from Duff & Phelps, the article discusses industry-specific factors to consider when evaluating data center locations including power needs/costs, scalability, and security; and carefully analyzes financing strategies for these capital-intensive endeavors as well.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) is expected to finalize new lease accounting standards (“Standards”) within the coming months which will have very real consequences for owners and lessees alike.