Deepening the firm’s national real estate footprint, Fox Rothschild LLP is pleased to welcome Mitchel Hill as a partner in the New York office.

Hill provides comprehensive representation to clients engaged in commercial real estate transactions, including the acquisition, disposition, financing, development and leasing of various types of real property, as well as joint ventures. As a part of his varied skill set, he has extensive experience with the acquisition, sale and financing of multifamily and health care related real estate. He also offers strategic guidance to investors, sellers, purchasers and lenders regarding corporate sales, mergers and acquisitions. Additionally, Hill possesses extensive experience in the acquisition, disposition and enforcement of distressed debt and debt restructuring and real estate-related litigation.

“We are delighted to welcome Mitch to our New York real estate team,” said Michael I. Slapo, Fox’s New York office managing partner.

“His extensive experience will complement the already strong group we have in the New York office and the firm. His focus on commercial real estate transactions and related financings will add a new dimension to the practice to better serve our clients,” Slapo added.

Hill will also be joining Fox’s growing Real Estate and Housing Finance Group.

“Mitch’s experience with multifamily housing, skilled nursing facilities and other types of real estate that are financed in Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and FHA transactions will further deepen the firm’s foot print in the housing and finance space,” said Gina A. Hough, Fox partner who spearheads the firm’s Real Estate and Housing Finance Group.

Fox’s real estate department has been on a steady growth trajectory over the past year. The nationwide team now boasts more than 60 attorneys and other professionals in the firm’s 19 offices.

In New York, Jesse Masyr and Karen Binder – renowned for their extensive familiarity with New York regulations and approval processes and with a reputation as the go-to group who has helped bring to fruition the development of numerous high-profile real estate projects in the city – joined Fox in 2013.  In New Jersey, the firm welcomed a team of nine real estate attorneys, led by Robert Klausner, who also opened a Fox office in Morristown, NJ, in the summer of 2013.

Some of Hill’s representative matters include:

• Represented a New York City real estate investment and development company in the sale of a 400,000 plus square foot development parcel in the Hudson Yards area of Manhattan to a prolific real estate investor.
• Counseled a major life insurance company, a large hedge fund and a short-duration loan fund in the creation of a short-term $50+ million transitional bridge lending platform focused mainly on value-add real estate assets that were in need of restructuring due to previous debt defaults.
• Counseled an owner group in the $60+ million sale of a large ground floor, high-end retail cooperative unit in a prime Madison Avenue location to a large publicly traded Real Estate Investment Trust.
• Served as the lead lawyer in charge of the acquisition of more than $150 million in various mortgage loans for both borrowers and investors in numerous U.S. jurisdictions, including New York City.
• Led a team of lawyers in the litigation, settlement and workout on behalf of a lender for a $28 million mortgage loan secured by a partially completed condominium construction project in New York City.
• Served as lead lawyer in a project that consisted of the sale of four separate housing projects in the Harlem area of Manhattan and one on Roosevelt Island, which collectively contained more than 4,000 apartment units. The transaction – $940 million – was one of the largest residential multi-building portfolio sales in New York City history.
• Served as the lead real estate lawyer in the $2.3 billion purchase, financing and restructuring of Beverly Enterprises, Inc., a NYSE total company with a portfolio of more than 350 skilled nursing and related nursing facilities and the $1.3 billion purchase, financing and restructuring of Mariner Health Care, Inc., a public company, with a portfolio of more than 280 skilled nursing and healthcare facilities.

Hill is the on the board of the Long Island Division of the New York State Chapter of the March of Dimes and is the chairman of the chapter’s golf committee. He earned his J.D., with honors, from the University of North Carolina School of Law and his B.S. from the University of North Carolina.

He was previously a partner at Seyfarth Shaw LLP in New York.

www.foxrothschild.com