Olshan Law: Attorney Profiles: Thomas D. Kearns

THOMAS D. KEARNS
Partner / New York

Thomas D. Kearns has significant experience in both real estate and corporate law. He specializes in representing owners, operators and developers in the acquisition, development, leasing and financing of office, residential and retail properties. He has extensive experience with joint venture, LLC, tenant-in-common and other agreements between co-venturers and with sophisticated condominium or other joint ownership arrangements of both real estate and non-real estate businesses. He is also an expert on the impact of federal and state securities laws on real estate. Mr. Kearns regularly represents professional athletes and sports executives and other high net worth individuals in their residential transactions in New York.

Mr. Kearns has been repeatedly named to the New York Super Lawyers list, a Thomson Reuters lawyer rating service, since 2006.

Mr. Kearns is an Associate Partner of the Partnership for New York City.

Mr. Kearns has served as an instructor with the Continuing Legal Education program at Fordham Law School, teaching courses on Limited Liability Companies and Residential Real Estate and with the Stephen Newman Real Estate Institute of Baruch College, teaching a course on Real Estate Investment Trusts. Mr. Kearns has served in various leadership roles with the Real Property Section of the American Bar Association; most recently as a Book Editor for the Real Property Section.

LECTURES/SEMINARS
• Lecturer, Understanding the Predicaments of Financially Distressed Developers, Reed Seminars, 2009

• Lecturer, Negotiating & Structuring Commercial Real Estate Acquisitions, Reed Seminars, 2008

• Lecturer, Pre-Contract Due Diligence on Commercial Real Estate Transactions, American Land Institute for Continuing Education, 2007

REPRESENTATIVE MATTERS
• Represented a joint venture between Invesco Real Estate and the Kaufman Organization in connection with its acquisition of the office unit of 100-104 Fifth Avenue from the bankruptcy estate of Rock US Holdings Inc. which was covered by The Wall Street Journal and The New York Law Journal.

• Lead counsel for a joint venture of Boston Properties and Madison Equities for the office building assemblage on Manhattan's 8th Avenue consisting of nine lots, two air rights parcels and three different sellers for more than $200 million. The New York Law Journal story may be viewed here.

• Kaufman Astoria Studios, New York City Economic Development and New York State financings, construction of additional stage, office and stage leasing.

• Lead drafting attorney on a complex tenants-in-common agreement for a major Midtown-West office building after the publication of IRS Rev Proc 2002-22.

• Organized the condominum structure for the TriBeca Film Center.

• Lead drafting attorney representing for landlord of the Surrey Hotel on Manhattan's Upper East Side on ground lease modification to update the ground lease to comply with modern financing techniques.

• Private placement of LLC interests to shareholders of a Manhattan cooperative to acquire valuable retail space in the cooperative.

• Purchase of several retail condominium and cooperative interests in Manhattan apartment buildings including Madison Avenue and 75th Street and the New Museum condominium in SOHO (press report) and the related lease-out or sale of the properties.

• Sale of rental apartment building on Central Park South for more than $100,000,000.

• Represented the developer of the W Hotel in Times Square.

• Purchase and subsequent sale at a significant profit of 130 Prince Street in SOHO, an office building with valuable retail space.

• Acquisition of development parcels and construction loans for the Empire Condominium, Vesta 17 (201 West 17th Street) Condominium and Vesta 24 (231 Tenth Avenue).

BAR ADMISSIONS
New York
New Jersey

MEMBER
American Bar Association
New York State Bar Association