Jonathan L. Mechanic and Melanie Meyers
Jonathan L. Mechanic and Melanie Meyers
Chairman; Partner and Member at Fried Frank’s Real Estate Department
Last year's rank: 89
Fried Frank’s project roster can read like a Who’s Who of commercial real estate, as they provided counsel to some prestigious deals in 2019.
To name just a few: The firm worked with WarnerMedia on the sale-leaseback of its approximately 1.5 million-square-foot Time Warner Condominium Unit at 30 Hudson Yards, which WarnerMedia will sell to an affiliate of Related for approximately $2.2 billion and, upon closing, lease it back for its global headquarters until 2034.
They also worked with Blackstone on its acquisition of a 65 percent controlling interest in Great Wolf Resorts, an owner and operator of family-oriented entertainment resorts, which will see the company form a new $2.9 billion joint venture with Centerbridge Partners. Fried Frank also provided counsel to Brookfield Properties, Google, Atria Senior Living Group, and to JPMorgan Chase on its planned 2.5 million-square-foot, multibillion-dollar headquarters redevelopment at 270 Park Avenue, an ongoing project for the firm.
“The JPMorgan Chase project is representative of the type of projects we do in a collaborative way with the transactional side of the Fried Frank Real Estate Practice, because it’s a visionary building in that it’s going to be the first building built under [the newly rezoned] East Midtown,” said Melanie Meyers, a partner who runs the land-use end of the firm’s real estate practice. “That’s a project we worked on from an entitlement standpoint and from a transactional standpoint, in the sense of working on the deals that allowed development rights to be transferred to that site. That’s a representative project in the scope of how the practice works as a whole.”
The onset of COVID-19 has provided a new sense of value for the firm’s counsel, in helping companies figure out the myriad issues associated with the unprecedented disruption in business.
“There were issues between lenders and borrowers, landlords and tenants, and buyers and sellers. We were in the midst of a lot of those discussions, helping people figure out what to do, how to go from here, and how to get to the other side of the COVID crisis,” said Jonathan Mechanic, chairman of Fried Frank’s Real Estate Department. “I’ve moderated panels talking about what documents provide for and resolving [conflicts] outside the scope of the documents, and dealing with PPP loans and whether different constituencies could qualify for governmental assistance programs.”—L.G.
