Real Estate Team Wins Two NAIOP Deal of the Year Awards

The firm's New Jersey Real Estate team handled two high-profile matters, which won top Deal of the Year Awards at the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties (NAIOP) NJ’s 25th Annual Commercial Real Estate Awards Gala in May. It is an unusual honor for a law firm to have handled two transactions recognized as deals of the year in the same prestigious annual awards ceremony.

In the deal that won the Economic Impact Award, Drinker Biddle represented Matrix Development Group in connection with the Panasonic Corporation US Headquarters transaction. The deal will result in a new build-to-suit LEED Gold Certified office building in downtown Newark that will maintain approximately 1,000 jobs in New Jersey. Partner Michael Rothpletz and associate Joseph Whitney worked on the Matrix joint venture, $100 million financing, and a host of other matters associated with the milestone lease to Panasonic. The transaction was one of the largest deals in the state of New Jersey in recent history.

The firm also represented the Hampshire Companies in a deal that won the Creative Office Award for Realogy Corporation's new LEED Certified, 280,000 square foot US Headquarters in Madison, NJ, which was awarded major incentives by the NJEDA as a result of its maintaining nearly 1,000 New Jersey jobs. The Drinker Biddle team on the deal included partner Glenn Pantel, who obtained the required rezoning and development approvals; partner Michael SanGiacomo and associate Michelle O’Dowd, who handled the approximately $50 million construction financing; and Michael Rothpletz and Joseph Whitney, who handled the single-tenant lease to Realogy. The Realogy lease deal was also one of the largest in New Jersey in the past year.

The awards were given by NAIOP, the leading organization for developers, owners and related professionals in office, industrial and mixed-use real estate.