Overview
Concept to Completion: Move Your Project Forward
Successful real estate projects and transactions involve many moving parts. At Michael Best, we help clients maximize value, manage risk, and see dream projects to fruition. Our experienced team advises on every aspect of real estate law, from acquisition and development to leasing, financing, and dispute resolution.
We serve developers, investors, lenders, and businesses for whom real estate is a strategic asset. Our attorneys work with clients to proactively identify opportunities, structure transactions and financing, negotiate agreements, and secure projects for siting, permitting, construction, and occupancy.
Best Law Firms Tier 1 – Milwaukee Real Estate Law
Chambers & Partners
Received Band 2 recognition for Real Estate in Wisconsin
Midwest Real Estate News: Best of the Best 2024
Our Approach: Strategic Counsel for Seamless Execution
Given the complexities of real estate, we gather as much information as possible. We learn your goals, timelines, and risk profile, then tailor our legal strategy to support your success.
Our team brings many years of experience across asset classes and jurisdictions, with a collaborative mindset and a commitment to efficiency. We work seamlessly across numerous disciplines, such as real estate, finance, construction, environmental, or government relations, to help your project succeed and face any challenges that might come your way.
Covering everything from land acquisition and entitlements to lease negotiations and dispute resolution, your project stays on track and aligned with your goals thanks to our practical, business-minded counsel.
"What sets Michael Best apart is their ability to troubleshoot and solve problems with all stakeholders."
Focus Areas
Our Real Estate team works alongside clients, consultants, capital providers, and end users to guide projects from concept to completion.
We support single- and mixed-use developments across the U.S. in sectors including hospitality, sports and entertainment, retail, residential, office, industrial, education, agribusiness, medical, energy, and infrastructure. From land acquisition and zoning to financing, construction, and leasing or sale, we help clients navigate every phase of development.
Our clients include owners, tenants, developers, contractors, brokers, lenders, and institutional investors such as pension funds, private equity firms, and insurance companies.
Navigating land use approvals requires deep knowledge of regulatory frameworks and strong relationships with governing bodies. We counsel clients through every phase of the approval process, from concept to occupancy.
Our team has extensive experience in zoning, land use regulation, and condemnation matters. We assist clients in securing federal, state, county, and local permits, licenses, and approvals for a wide range of projects. We also prepare and negotiate development agreements, land use applications, and related documents with government entities.
Our attorneys regularly appear before local and quasi-municipal bodies in approval, regulatory, and enforcement matters. With our deep municipal law experience, we’re also retained by local governments to represent them in land use matters. When disputes arise, we advocate for our clients in litigation at both the trial and appellate levels.
We represent local, regional, and national clients in a wide range of commercial leasing matters. Our team advises landlords, tenants, brokers, and property managers on structuring and executing complex leasing arrangements across asset types and jurisdictions.
Our experience includes ground leases, master leases, sale-leaseback transactions, synthetic leases, build-to-suit leases, subleases, and leases involving tax credits and incentives. We also assist with negotiating and drafting property management agreements and other legal matters related to landlord-tenant relationships and ownership.
Tax increment financing (TIF) and federal and state tax credits can make development projects more viable and stimulate economic growth, but navigating these programs can be complex. We help clients understand the rules and structure financing strategies that align with their goals.
Our team advises developers, municipalities, lenders, and investors on TIF and tax credit financing for a wide range of projects. Whether revitalizing a blighted area, preserving historic buildings, enhancing energy efficiency, introducing affordable housing, or remediating environmental contamination, we help clients unlock the full potential of these incentives.
Construction businesses face unique legal challenges at every stage of growth. We provide a full suite of legal services to support day-to-day operations and help clients manage risk across the construction lifecycle.
Our attorneys serve as business counselors working with owners, architects, engineers, contractors, subcontractors, suppliers, and other stakeholders on projects across the globe. We advise on entity formation, contract negotiation, regulatory compliance, dispute resolution, and strategic planning tailored to the construction industry.
We serve as counsel to utility clients on a wide range of legal matters related to infrastructure development. Our team advises on government relations and rulemaking, regulatory permitting, site acquisition, project financing, and development.
We also support clients in regulatory proceedings, rate regulation, asset sales and purchases, and environmental compliance—helping them navigate complex legal landscapes while advancing critical infrastructure projects.
When organizations enter relationships with lenders and business partners, the terms of those agreements are critical and often complex. We help clients structure and negotiate financing arrangements that support long-term success and minimize risk.
Our team advises on all the complex real estate financing options, providing strategic guidance to foster mutually beneficial relationships and align with each client’s business objectives.
From local schools to federal highways, public-private partnerships (P3s) help meet critical infrastructure needs and drive economic development. We help businesses and government entities form successful partnerships that bring complex projects to life.
Our team provides end-to-end legal support across the full lifecycle of a P3 project—from initial planning and financing to procurement, construction, and operations. We advise on partnership structures, funding strategies, environmental remediation, multi-party agreements, and dispute resolution.
We take a multidisciplinary approach, drawing on the experience of attorneys across our firm and coordinating with our affiliate, Michael Best Strategies, for guidance on government relations and public affairs.
Each P3 project presents unique financial, regulatory, and political challenges. We work closely with clients, consultants, agencies, elected officials, and other stakeholders to overcome obstacles and deliver results.
Experience
Built for Complexity. Focused on Results.
Our clients’ real estate projects span a wide variety of large-scale developments and transactions:
Advised a developer, owner, and operator of indoor water park resorts in all aspects of developing and financing a new property in Georgia. We assisted with land acquisition, securing local entitlements, negotiating and documenting construction and design delivery contracts, and structuring public and private financing. The 490,000-square-foot project will include a conference center, indoor waterpark, hotel, and related facilities, and will be a significant regional hospitality amenity for metro Atlanta.
Served as general project counsel and issuer’s counsel to the Wisconsin Center District in all aspects of the development, financing, and construction of a 714,000 square foot professional NBA basketball arena. Our team oversaw all elements of the $524 million project’s development and advised on all details of the arena public bond issuance, with an aggregate value of approximately $203 million. We also represented the District in the negotiation and drafting of an Arena License Agreement with a professional hockey team, securing the team’s presence in Milwaukee for years to come. The new agreement includes capital improvements to the arena plus new direct revenues.
- Represented a regional real estate developer in the second phase of a 200-acre mixed-use development in Wisconsin. We assisted with all aspects of the project, from planning through entitlements, financing, land acquisition, and development. The first phase was a 35-acre retail center, and the second phase consists of a 93-room hotel with an adjoining conference center, multifamily housing, senior housing, and single-family home sites. When fully developed, this project will add more than $90 million to the local tax base.
- Represented a developer in the historic redevelopment of a former mall property in Wisconsin that was long considered an eyesore, located on an otherwise redeveloped downtown street. The site presented significant drainage, traffic, parking, and title issues. We assisted with municipal approvals, complex financing (including tax increment financing), clearing title restrictions, joint development ownership issues, construction loans, and sales of the individual land parcels. The new development will include three upscale apartment buildings, a regional specialty grocery store, and three other commercial buildings.
- Represented a project developer and governmental authority in the development, commercial condominium structuring, and financing of a 1,000,000-square-foot professional hockey sports arena, hotel, office, and public parking multi-use urban infill development in downtown Allentown, Pennsylvania.
- Represented a developer in the acquisition, entitlement, public-private partnership structuring, commercial condominium structuring, development, financing, and leasing of a 500,000-square-foot build-to-suit office building (which included leasing with a public company tenant), parking, retail, multi-use urban infill development in downtown Madison, Wisconsin.
- Served as counsel to a developer in the acquisition, entitlement, financing, development, sale, and leasing of a 55-acre, 510,000-square-foot national retail power center in suburban Chicago, Illinois.
- Advised a national water park developer in the acquisition, entitlement, financing, and development of a 450-room water park resort in Fitchburg, Massachusetts.
- Represented a developer in the acquisition, entitlement, development, leaseback, construction, and financing of a utility plant to supply utilities to a major healthcare development in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
- Assisted a consortium of three private universities in the development, construction, operation, and leasing of a student dormitory and conference facility in downtown Chicago, Illinois.
- Represented a developer in the acquisition, development, and debt and equity financing of a medical office facility in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
