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Steve Bell is a firm founder and chaired the Real Estate Group from 1996-2007. During Mr. Bell's 35-year legal career, he has dealt with legal problems affecting real estate from a number of different perspectives, including not only the documentation of all manner of real estate transactions but also financial and tax structuring, and litigation, including mortgage foreclosures and workouts. His transactional work includes mortgage financings, sale-leaseback transactions, development, leasing, construction and acquisitions and dispositions of office, industrial, commercial, residential, mixed-use and public properties.
Mr. Bell represents clients in a wide variety of businesses, including insurance companies, pension funds, commercial banks and other financial institutions, REITs, and real estate companies and entrepreneurs. He devotes a significant portion of his time to hands-on real estate work, but his broad experience also enables him to oversee a wide range of matters and to ensure that they are handled in the most efficient manner possible.
Mr. Bell is a member of the Board of Directors of The Interfaith Youth Core and has served on the Board of Directors of Central DuPage Hospital. Mr. Bell has lectured for the Illinois Institute for Continuing Legal Education and acted as Co-Chair of Law Seminar International's seminar on Advanced Commercial Leasing in 2007 and 2008. He has also been selected by his peers to be included in The Best Lawyers in America and Chambers USA.
Mr. Bell is admitted to practice in Illinois. He received his law degree, cum laude, from Harvard University in 1969 and his A.B. in history, with high honors, from Wheaton College in 1966.
Representative Matters
- Representation of the purchasers of a $230,000,000 office building in Chicago which closed December, 2005.
- Representation of Exelon Business Services Company and Mesirow Financial Holdings, Inc. in their Chicago headquarters leases and resultant contracts for tenant improvements. The Mesirow lease will be in a building currently under construction.
- Representation of a group of institutional investors in acquiring $160 million of rated notes secured by a mortgage on the commercial portion of a large, trophy-type multi-use building in Chicago.
- Representation of institutional investors in various first mortgage and mezzanine loan transactions involving office, apartment, industrial and mixed-use buildings not only in Chicago and its suburbs, but in many other jurisdictions as well.
- Representation of institutional investors in enforcement of loan document remedies, including foreclosure, deeds in lieu of foreclosure, and workouts.
- Representation of institutional and developer joint venture partners in structuring, closing and implementing joint venture arrangements, and in restructuring and remedy enforcement.
- Representation of entrepreneurs in the structuring and implementation of numerous credit-based sale-leaseback transactions, including acquisition, leaseback on a bond or triple net lease basis, financing, and disposition of various types of properties in a number of different states. Many of the individual transactions involved multiple locations in numerous states.
- Representation of an institutional investor in the $90 million financing of a major Chicago office building secured in part by a secured master lease of the facility.
- Representation of institutional investors and entrepreneurs in the development, construction, acquisition and/or disposition of all kinds of real estate, including office/warehouse buildings, office buildings, shopping centers, apartment buildings, single-family housing and major public developments.
- Representation of a joint venture partner in the development of a major Chicago office complex and in the subsequent transfer of that venturer's interest to the co-venturer; the continued representation of the co-venturer in the lease-up of the buildings, division of the buildings into a multiple ownership structure, and ultimate disposition; and continued representation of the purchaser of the major portion of the complex in leasing transactions and in the ultimate sale of the project.
- Representation of three residential condominium associations in the renegotiation of the operating agreement covering expense allocation and other governance issues relating to a large mixed-use building in Chicago.
- Representation of a park district in connection with a construction dispute, and of developers, architectural firms and construction companies in private and public projects.
- Representation of entrepreneurs in the acquisition and financing of a portfolio of self-storage warehouses in several states, and disposition of the portfolio on a tax-deferred basis by a combination of statutory mergers and partnership contributions to the operating partnership of a REIT.
- Representation of developers in condominium developments and conversions.
- Representation of landlords and tenants in major office and commercial lease transactions.
Education- Harvard University, J.D., cum laude, 1969
- Wheaton College, A.B., with honors, 1966
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