About
Paul M. Schwartz joined the Firm in 2009 and is a member of the Real Estate Practice Group and Joint Venture practice. He focuses on commercial real estate law components including joint ventures, acquisitions, sales, borrower-side financings, and restructurings for complex transactions nationwide. His Joint Venture practice emphasizes “Platform” or “Programmatic” investments for financial institutions seeking longer-term commitments. Known as a “business lawyer,” he employs creative, solution-oriented approaches to novel issues.
He counsels landlords and tenants in large-scale office, retail, industrial, and ground lease transactions, representing prominent New York City and national landlords with office leasing portfolios. He predominantly represents large financial institutions and developers/operators in complicated joint venture transactions and underlying real estate deals. Clients value the business introductions he regularly facilitates.
Paul is a member of the Firm’s opinion committee and active in mentoring programs at A&S. He participates in pro bono initiatives including immigration assistance for U-Visa and asylum applications, plus commercial leasing and corporate services for small businesses.
Notable Representative Transactions
- Three separate acquisitions of manufactured housing site portfolios across fourteen states, valued over $2 billion in aggregate, with eventual disposition
- Acquisition, financing and joint venture structuring of ground lessee interest at 680 Madison Avenue, New York, and $200 million multi-lender construction financing (later upsized to $350 million) for luxury Manhattan residential development, with subsequent ground leasehold disposition subject to partial leaseback
- Acquisition of $245 million six-property multi-family portfolio containing 2,200 units for joint venture, including assumption of existing indebtedness, additional financing negotiation, and partial portfolio sale
- Counsel to nationally recognized private equity fund in distressed urban shopping mall acquisition involving defaulted loan purchase from lender in bankruptcy, litigation settlement among multiple stakeholders, joint venture negotiation, and institutional financing and refinancing
- Representation of operating partner in recapitalization and refinancing of joint venture for mixed-use New York City development
- Acquisition, financing and joint venture structuring of ground lessee interest at 67-70 Charlton Street, New York, and subsequent construction financing for high-end residential cooperative development
- Acquisition of seven-office building portfolio in San Diego, California with individual mortgage assumptions
- Acquisition and financing of grocery store portfolio throughout New England
- Acquisition, restructuring, financing and sale of self-storage center portfolio across Florida valued at approximately $50 million
- Acquisition of multiple loans encumbering over 20 hotels in 9 states, with simultaneous negotiation of deeds-in-lieu of foreclosure from over 20 separate hotel borrowers
- Acquisition of partially entitled and raw land in Florida
- Preferred equity investment in two shopping centers in Tennessee and Kentucky
