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    Educational Institution Real Estate

    Manatt, Phelps & Phillips' representation of colleges, universities, and other educational institutions spans a wide range of the firm's practice areas.  The firm includes lawyers who previously served as in-house counsel for a private university with extensive land holdings and others who practiced public law for government agencies; in those capacities, these attorneys provided ongoing advice to colleges and universities in a variety of contexts, including budgeting issues.  Several of Manatt's lawyers also have past and present experience serving on governing boards of educational institutions.  These lawyers bring a broad range of valuable experience and expertise to its representation of educational institutions.  Others have served as senior directors of real estate campus and real estate investment portfolios in major universities.  In addition the firm's extensive healthcare practice enables its attorneys to provide expert advice to institutions with academic medical centers, teaching hospitals and other programs where education and healthcare issues overlap.

    Acquisition and Disposition of Real Estate

    As part of the firm's general real estate practice, our lawyers have experience with real estate issues specific to academic institutions.  We regularly handle the purchase, sale, ground leasing and build-to-suit leases of real estate for colleges and universities.

    We bring sound business judgment to every deal, offering an efficient and thorough due diligence review as well as an assessment of future risks and opportunities.  We work with the leading national and international financial and investment institutions, and often play a key role in public and private financing, leasing, syndication and other highly specialized financing arrangements.

    Development, Land Use and Construction Activities

    We represent educational institutions in a broad spectrum of development projects and understand the unique issues of academic real estate.  Our attorneys are involved from the first stages of planning through completion, operation and eventual disposition of projects.  We have experience in all entitlement, development and construction processes, including land use and subdivision approvals, variances and rezonings, environmental impact assessments, endangered species issues, development agreements, hazardous waste regulation and disposition as well as other environmental compliance issues and redevelopment activities.  We have the unique experience to deal with special land use entitlement issues and particular aspects of academic governance processes as they relate to real estate transactions.  We are also cognizant of the need for real estate use by academic institutions to tie into their own academic mission.  We have significant experience in the collaborative and collegial process that occurs in faculty committees appointed to articulate the academic needs and activities that will occur in newly constructed facilities, and the difficulty in balancing academic values with market realities. 

    Ground Leases

    For more than 25 years, our attorneys have prepared numerous ground leases - both residential and nonresidential - for our college and university and governmental clients.  These ground leases comprise single family detached homes, planned unit developments and condominiums.  In the nonresidential arena, our attorneys have prepared ground leases pertaining to educational institutions and covering the development and use of hotels, technology parks and other uses.  In a related area of creating campus environments, the firm has prepared ground leases of historic properties on numerous former military bases, the first of which became a template lease for the National Park Service and has been used as a model by other federal agencies when entering into ground leases for historic properties.

    Representative Matters

    • Represented Azusa Pacific University in connection with the acquisition of a 320-unit apartment complex to be used for student housing, which was financed through a bond issue by the California Statewide Communities Development Authority.  Manatt also negotiated on behalf of APU a letter of credit reimbursement agreement with the bank that issued the letter of credit to credit enhance the bond issue.  In addition to refinancing a bridge loan made to acquire the apartment complex, the proceeds of the bonds were used to refund an existing bond series and to finance construction of a new science educational facility.
    • Representing Claremont Graduate University in land use and general real estate issues related to the acquisition, entitlement, development, construction and operation of its campus in Claremont, California.
    • Representing Claremont McKenna College in land use and general real estate issues related to the entitlement, development, construction and operation of its campus in Claremont, California.
    • Representing Claremont University Consortium in the subdivision and sale of portions of its property located in Claremont and Upland, California, to certain of the Claremont Colleges, which will use the land for academic purposes.
    • Representing New Roads School in matters related to acquisition and development of its planned campus in Santa Monica, California.
    • Representing University of Southern California in the sale of land parcels to the Metropolitan Transit Authority.
    • Represented University of Southern California in a construction dispute regarding construction of a hospital.
    • Represented Stanford University in leasing retail spaces at its world-class shopping center.
    • Represented Stanford University in ground leases for both vacant land and improved parcels in the Stanford Research Park.
    • Represented Stanford University in the creation of creative financing programs to triple purchasing power for acquisition of homes by faculty for recruiting and retention purposes.
    • Represented the University of San Francisco in the development and conveyancing of residential condominiums for faculty and staff.
    • Represented California State University in a Petition for Writ of Mandate challenging the Trustee's certification of an EIR for the Monterey Bay Campus Master Plan.
    • Represented St. John's University in the acquisition of a school building from a bankrupt hospital, which consisted of buying not only the actual building but the entire assets of one of the schools operating in the building.
    • Represented Los Angeles Community College in its effort to swap land with the County of Los Angeles to expand the Mission College campus.
    • Negotiated a ground lease from the University of California, San Diego for development by Lowe Enterprises of Estancia La Jolla, a new conference hotel located on a peripheral portion of the campus.
    • Represented California State University Stanislaus in the negotiation of the disposition of property at the Stockton satellite campus.
    • Renegotiation of a ground lease for the California State University Northridge campus.
    • Represented numerous hospitals and medical centers as development, construction and financing counsel for major modernization and new construction using tax-exempt bond financing.
    • General counsel to New York Structural Biology Center ("NYSBC"), an innovative, public-private, state-of-the-art research center developed cooperatively by 10 research institutions (including Columbia University, New York University, The Rockefeller University and Weill Cornell Medical College).
    • Represented the Trustees of California State University Dominguez Hills in negotiating all of the documents for the $100 million Home Depot Center (27,000-seat soccer stadium, 7,000 seat tennis stadium and multiple athletic facilities).
    • Represented a major university as tenant under a long-term facility lease for 90% of a lower Manhattan office building to be converted to apartments for student occupancy.
    • Counseled NASA-Ames and its prospective long-term ground lease tenants (including California State University, the University of California, Carnegie-Mellon University, Lockheed Martin, the Martin Group and many others) in an ongoing series of "partnership" meetings to determine how the new world class research and educational community would govern itself, particularly in the context of overlapping governmental jurisdictions (federal, state and local).
    • Documented ground leases for, inter alia, hotels (property owned by the City of Brea Redevelopment Agency) and office towers.
    • Represented a major university in the City of New York as tenant under a long-term ground lease transaction for a building to be converted to a theater complex to house a division of the university.
    • Represented a major university in the City of New York under a development agreement in which the developer acquired and renovated a building for transfer to the university as student housing.
    • Represented a college in the City of New York under a development agreement in which the developer constructs units of faculty housing in conjunction with a publicly regulated and financed housing project.
    • Represented U.S. Education Corporation, a for-profit college, and its subsidiary entities (Western Career College, Silicon Valley College, Apollo College), now part of DeVry University, in the development, construction and leasing of campuses in California, Arizona, Nevada, Oregon and Idaho.
    • Represented Cal Poly Pomona Foundation, Inc. in the development of Innovation Village Technology Park on the grounds of the California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, including the ground lease of parcels to the American Red Cross, and Trammel Crow Development Company and Southern California Edison.
    • Represented The King's College in the lease of 10,000 square feet of space in midtown Manhattan to be used as academic and administrative facilities.

    Representative Clients

    • Azusa Pacific University
    • Cal Poly Pomona Foundation, Inc.
    • California State University Dominguez Hills
    • California State University Northridge
    • California State University Stanislaus
    • Claremont Graduate University
    • Claremont McKenna College
    • Claremont University Consortium
    • Inner City Education Foundation
    • Los Angeles Community College District
    • Lowe Enterprises, Inc.
    • Loyola Marymount University
    • Manhattan School of Music
    • New Roads School
    • New York Structural Biology Center
    • Pacific Education Foundation (formerly Heald College)
    • San Francisco State University Bookstore
    • Shasta College
    • Stanford University
    • St. John's University
    • The Drew School
    • The King's College
    • The New School
    • The Scripps Foundation for Science and the Environment
    • University of California, San Diego
    • University of San Francisco
    • University of Southern California
    • U.S. Education Corporation (now DeVry University)