Austin Thies

Experienced real estate counsel, including development projects and related matters

Austin Thies advises real estate clients on land acquisitions, dispositions, development and construction. He also focuses on real estate financial transactions for facilities purchases and development using a variety of financing methods, including representing borrowers in tax-exempt bond structures.

• Represents developers and landowners in connection dispositions, acquisitions, and development projects of commercial and industrial properties, including homebuilding.

• Represents charter schools and other nonprofits in connection with school facility acquisition and development using tax-exempt bond issuances.
• Negotiates, drafts and analyzes documentation related to real estate and financing projects, including purchase agreements, commercial lease documents, diligence materials, title and survey, and customary closing documents.
• Drafts and negotiates documents in connection with tax-exempt bond financing matters, including bond applications, disclosure statements for use in public offering documents, state intercept letters, trustee notices, trust indentures, loan documents and financing agreements.
• Provides detailed analysis of matters involving significant issues arising from review of leases, title documents, third-party reports and other diligence items.
• Provides representation and counsel involving matters such as corporate compliance, operational compliance and best business practices.

• Served as borrower’s counsel in over $350 million collective tax-exempt bond-financed transactions for education development revenue issuances used for refunding, acquisition and new construction projects, primarily representing charter schools in Arizona.
• Represented a real estate and infrastructure owner, operator, lender and developer in connection with the $1.3 billion sale of 428 properties to an REIT.
• Represented real estate and infrastructure owner, operator, lender and developer in connection with the $625.3 million sale of 18 industrial properties to a property trust.
• Represented a fitness company in the acquisition of approximately 500 other fitness studio locations, analyzing terms and significant risks presented in existing retail leases to be assumed by client.
• Represented an REIT in connection with the $150 million acquisition of 46 restaurant properties from multinational real estate company.
• Represented a commercial client relating to the $650 million sale of client's multi-tenanted office building, focusing on contracts, assignability and corporate structuring.
• Represented a national grocery store chain with construction projects for use with client’s online ordering operations on a national scale.