Bernstein Shur
Practices | Real Estate Law
About Us
Bernstein Shur’s Real Estate Practice Group is the
largest team of real estate specialists in northern New England. Each of our most senior eight attorneys average more than 20 years of expertise in commercial real estate.
Our Clients
Respected by Our Peers & Clients
What We Do
Specialty Areas
Timely Turnaround to Get Deals Done
Strategic Alliances
The group’s clients include Fortune 500 companies and some of the region’s largest developers, banks and businesses – plus hundreds of small and mid-sized, family-owned businesses.
Respected by Our Peers & Clients
Chambers USA (the definitive directory of business attorneys in the United States) and Best Lawyers in America (a highly-respected guide to legal excellence) rank Bernstein Shur’s Real Estate Practice Group as the top practice of its kind in Maine.
Our group has expertise in all aspects of real estate and real estate-related transactions, including:
- Large scale project planning and acquisition
- Tenant and landlord leasing representation (including complex ground leasing) for office, retail, shopping center, industrial, mixed and specialty properties
- Project governmental permitting and approval processes, including subdivision planning
- Large-scale energy, hydro and land conservation projects
- Elderly housing development financing
- Timberland transactions
- Project and construction financing and refinancing
- Structuring special financing (non-recourse, wrap and other creative packages)
- Family ownership planning and transfers
- Construction contracts and bonding
- Environmental risk assessment and solutions including wetlands and “brownfields” development
- Condominium creation and development
- Project entity and tax treatment (entity choice, creation and tax structuring)
Current and past large-scale projects include:
- The buyer of 33 hydro-electric projects representing in excess of 65% of Maine’s entire hydro-electric capacity
- The buyer of the state’s largest conservation easement on 750,000 acres of Maine timberland
- The project and all development aspects of Maine’s largest waste-to-energy plants
- The lenders or developers of Maine’s largest shopping malls
- Maine’s first use of tax increment financing to support a housing development
- A number of wind energy projects
- Several energy transmission line projects
- Development and redevelopment
- Energy transmission
- Hydro-power
- Elderly housing
- Land conservation
- Litigation
- Waterfront properties
- Wind power
Timely Turnaround to Get Deals Done
The firm’s attorneys and paralegals are especially sensitive to the timely turnaround necessary to move deals and projects toward closing and completion. We’re experts in putting together the teams of professionals – inside and outside the firm – for our clients’ projects.
The wealth of specialized talents in our firm delivers considerable value to our real estate clients – including access to our municipal, taxation, construction law, mergers and acquisitions and corporate practice groups.
The firm’s clients benefit from the in-house services of Monument Title Company, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bernstein Shur. Monument Title specializes in providing title insurance for commercial projects ranging from the small business acquisition to many of the state’s larger energy, rail, utility and housing projects. The title company’s location in the firm’s Portland office is conducive to quick turn-around and rapid response on title matters.
Case study: From Complexity to Success
Case study: Preserving Maine’s Green Spaces
Case study: A Long Shot-In A Short Timeframe