Preti Flaherty’s Real Estate Law practice group handles a broad range of complex commercial real estate matters. We represent commercial buyers, sellers, lenders and developers and offer the following services:

• Acquisitions, including drafting and negotiating purchase and sales contracts, title review, due diligence review and closings)
• Negotiate easements and land use issues of real estate transactions
• Draft and negotiate commercial leases
• Governmental permitting, including municipal, DEP and LURC subdivisions
• Resolution of survey and title issues
• Commercial Lending
• Tax exempt and tax increment financing
• Construction contracts and bonding
• Environmental risk assessment and solutions
• Large-scale energy and hydro projects
• Timberlands
• Family ownership planning and transfers

Attorneys in the Real Estate group work closely with members of the Litigation Department to efficiently resolve boundary, title, contract, construction and other real estate disputes.

Representative Matters:

• Preti Flaherty acts as general counsel for Plum Creek Timber Company. Our Real Estate team is assisting Plum Creek on matters related to a landowner initiated concept plan that addresses the company’s long-range plan for the development and conservation of its timber holdings in the Moosehead/Jackman, Maine region. The Concept Plan covers 421,000 acres in 29 townships.  We presented the Concept Plan to the Maine Land Use Regulation Commission in April of 2006.  Approval of a plan requires a rezoning of the land area to allow for the proposed development.  The Concept Plan includes 72,000 acres of permanent conservation easements as well as the potential for over 300,000 acres of additional conservation, the development of two resorts and residential building lots.  The Plum Creek Concept Plan is unprecedented in its size and scope and has generated enormous public interest.
  
  
• Our Real Estate Group represented New Page, the owner in the sale of the hydroelectric assets of the Rumford Falls Power Co. in Rumford, Maine, an affiliate of Brookfield, formerly known as Brascan, at a purchase price in excess of $100 million. The electrical generating facility and adjacent paper mill had been operated as an integrated operation, requiring intricate real estate structuring, including shared water rights and cross-easements. The matter also involved complex contractual arrangements for the sharing of key infrastructure components during a post-sale transition period.
  
  
• We represented Brascan Corporation’s affiliate, Katahdin Forest Management LLC, as borrower in one of the first transactions in the country to use the New Market Tax Credit – a financing program designed to stimulate economic growth in targeted lower-income communities. Our attorneys assisted Katahdin’s finance and woodland management officials in negotiating the legal documents that were integral to refinancing a mortgage on Katahdin’s timberlands held by the Nature conservancy and achieving favorable mortgage rates through the credit mechanism. Preti Flaherty also worked with Katahdin’s woodland management officials in renegotiating a related conservation easement with the Nature Conservancy. The arrangement successfully married the interests of business, community and conservation.
  
  
• Preti Flaherty represented a developer in a combined hotel and residential condominium project. We handled the purchase and sale agreement for the acquisition of the property, as well as a conditional rezoning. We represented the client before the city planning board and city council and secured a site plan and subdivision approval. We also assisted the client with a Voluntary Response Action Plan (VRAP), protecting the client from any future environmental liability claims.
  
  
• To attract businesses to central Maine, we coordinated 24 municipalities who joined together to build a state-of-the-art office park. FirstPark, Northern New England’s first “Smart Park,” is a technologically exceptional facility and a growing hub for business operations. From acquisitions and protective covenants to easements and land use issues, we coordinated and finalized the 285-acre deal.
  
  
• Preti Flaherty represented Harper’s Development in the acquisition of, and debt and equity financing, for the SCI Sanmina building in Augusta, one of the largest manufacturing buildings in central Maine. The transaction effectively transforms a defunct manufacturing facility into an office park that will house a 300-employee call center and numerous government offices.
  
  
• We represented Franklin Memorial Hospital when it wanted to provide expanded facilities for health programs serving the hospital community. We represented the hospital throughout the process of leasing land to a developer who constructed a state-of-the-art dialysis center.
  
  
• Preti Flaherty represented the developer of two 1,000+-foot broadcast towers in Florida, including all aspects of real estate acquisition, construction, electronics procurement and long-term leasing and also handled negotiation and documentation of the subsequent disposition of the properties.
  
  
• Preti Flaherty has handled office leasing, facility leasing and construction contracting for major defense contractors in Maine, Connecticut, the District of Columbia and Alabama.
  
  
• By utilizing low-income housing tax credits, we have successfully completed projects for clients such as Leach Home Partners Ltd., CHOM Housing Ltd. Partnership, 7 Coliseum Avenue Association, L.P., Portsmouth Senior Housing Association, and many more.