Akerman reps Northstar in $224 million 24-property portfolio acquisition

LOS ANGELES, CA Akerman LLP, a top 100 U.S. law firm serving clients across the Americas, represented Northstar Commercial Partners, a privately held commercial real estate investment firm, in a $224 million joint venture investment that resulted in a multistate acquisition of a 24-property industrial, office, and retail portfolio. The 5.9 million s/f portfolio comprises of 13 industrial properties, eight office assets and three retail properties located in 12 states, including California, New York, Texas, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Washington, Virginia, Tennessee, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Arizona. The deal was financed by a combination of preferred equity, institutional debt and a private placement together with a private investment capital which was used to form  a joint venture between NorthStar and American-Israeli real estate company ALTO Real Estate Funds. The transaction is another example of recent real estate mega deals that are being driven by alternative funding sources, including Israeli capital, which continues to build momentum as a viable equity source for large-scale real estate investment and development projects across the United States. In a press release issued by Northstar Commercial Partners and ALTO Real Estate Funds, Brian Watson, Northstar’s Founder & CEO said, “This deal is the most significant acquisition in Northstar’s company history, bringing along with it our largest opportunity to date to create a positive impact for businesses and local communities nationwide. It is very rare in this economic environment to acquire an off-market deal of this magnitude, diversity, and low occupancy rate, in order to drive very attractive opportunistic level returns.” Real estate transactional partners Howard Gelt in Denver and Jane Hinton in Los Angeles led a multi-office cross-practice Akerman team working on parallel tracks to close the deal within a three month period. The Akerman team worked within the accelerated timeframe to secure all of the necessary real estate approvals for the acquisition and the financing of the deal, including the joint venture, and structuring the corresponding corporate and tax issues. They also lead a team of local counsel in more than ten different jurisdictions on matters ranging from environmental and land use issues, to the issuance of opinion letters and finance related approvals.