Biography: Real Estate

Steven Simkin, chair of the real estate department, maintains an active practice in major development projects, acquisitions and financings. His clients include major developers, investors, real estate investment trusts, institutional and private equity lenders, funds, and public and private institutions. He also has significant experience with workouts, restructurings and dispute resolutions integrating litigation, bankruptcy and tax expertise. He speaks regularly at industry symposiums and conferences on lease negotiations and writes on complex financing issues.

His clients include, SL Green, Gemini Real Estate Advisors, Rose Associates, Las Vegas Sands, Starwood Hotels and Resorts, Memorial Sloan-Kettering, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Metromedia and New York City developers, including George Klein, Rose Associates, Rockrose Development Company, Newmark & Company, Levine Builders, Allied Holdings and Zurich Alternative Investments.

His numerous development transactions include representing the landowner in connection with the Gramercy Park Hotel, the Stanhope Hotel, a 99-year ground lease with a developer for a high-rise apartment complex in West Chelsea, a mixed-use facility in Brooklyn, the Breslin Hotel, a ground lease of a new East Side residential condominium, a long-term ground lease between The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art and Edward J Minskoff Properties, and a development in South Beach, Florida.

Mr Simkin also has considerable experience representing clients in sales, acquisitions and financings, including involvement in multi-state mortgage financings on behalf of both lenders and borrowers and the formation of real estate funds to purchase loans and provide mezzanine financing for hotels, office buildings and residential developments.

Mr Simkin has broad experience in the area of commercial office leasing, and has been a regular panellist in the annual symposiums conducted by the New York Law Journal titled "Mastering the Art of Negotiating the Modern Lease." He has completed office lease negotiations for the headquarters of HBO and NASDAQ. Mr Simkin has also handled prominent store lease deals around New York City for both landlords and tenants.

With his involvement in the purchase, sale or financing of several hundred regional malls, Mr Simkin's shopping center experience is extensive. Equitable, Simon Properties, Taubman, Federated Department Stores, Saks & Company, Jerry J Moore Companies and Devon Properties are among his list of clients. He has also been a principal speaker at the International Conference of Shopping Centers' Annual Meeting discussing the acquisition of regional malls.

Mr Simkin is a cum laude graduate of both the University of Pennsylvania college and law school, where he was an assistant editor of the University of Pennsylvania Law Review. Mr Simkin is included in The International Who's Who in Real Estate Lawyers, Euromoney's Guide to the World's Leading Real Estate Lawyers, Chambers Global and USA Leading Business Lawyers, Best Lawyers and has been selected by the Real Estate Board of New York as one of the most influential persons in New York City, and was recently honored by Lincoln Center.