Zeidel & Associates Handles Complex Construction and Development Contracts for a West Coast Expansion Project

Situation

Zeidel & Associates represents a New York City-based integrated developer, operator, investor, and lender with offices and affiliates in major markets across the United States. The company has more than $13 billion in loan originations, co-originations and acquisitions and has investments across the real estate credit spectrum, including first mortgage, mezzanine, CMBS and preferred equity financing. Its development affiliate is a full-service development, planning, advisory, and management firm specializing in entitling, designing, and delivering premier residential real estate projects.

Zeidel & Associates has been supporting this client’s multi-family development portfolio for many years, handling its architect, construction and other pre-development and development contracts, creating turnkey agreements that can be used on projects throughout the country.

Approach

Over the past year, the client’s pace of acquisition and development, focused on the West Coast, has increased significantly, drastically expanding the number of complex architectural, engineering, and construction agreements Zeidel & Associates is drafting and negotiating on their behalf. There are multiple engagements for each project that require agreements. The client also began acquiring industrial parcels, in addition to its multifamily holdings.

While the major uptick in the number of contracts posed one set of challenges, the firm also was confronted with issues related to varied state laws that required us to coordinate with local counsel in multiple jurisdictions that our client was entering for the first time.  Further, due to the timing, the firm was instrumental in helping our client navigate acceptable solutions to supply chain and material cost escalation issues with its contractors. The firm successfully navigated unusually difficult negotiations with vendors that were negatively impacted by a limited qualified labor pool.

Result

The new projects on which Zeidel & Associates are currently assisting include:

• 124 acres in Scottsdale, AZ
• 224 acres of industrial land in Deer Valley, AZ, being developed into 4 million SF of industrial and manufacturing space,
• A 20.25-acre land parcel in Deer Valley, AZ, for a 97-unit build-for-rent single-family residential community
• A recently completed 170-unit luxury apartment development in Scottsdale, AZ
• A new, multi-phased project in Raleigh, NC, to be developed into four multi-family buildings and an office building, with building designs by different architects
• A 158-unit residential development in Englewood, Colorado

In addition to working on the new projects in the pipeline, we also resumed working on development projects in Seattle and in other markets that were temporarily put on hold due to the pandemic.