Drew Melville represents clients in real estate acquisitions, dispositions, financing, development, leasing, land use approvals, and public-private partnerships. Drew’s practice is national in scope, and he brings a creative and solution-oriented approach to his clients’ diverse array of real estate investment and development activities in every real estate asset class. Representative deals and projects often include urban infill, adaptive reuse, affordable and workforce housing, historic preservation, sustainable building, brownfield or gray-field redevelopment, and opportunity zones. Prior to re-entering private practice in 2015, he was an in-house counsel for a diversified land, agribusiness and development company. He also previously worked as a senior counsel at the Florida Department of Environmental Protection in Tallahassee. To date, Drew has closed more than $1.2 billion in commercial real estate transactions.
Education
Memberships
Urban Land Institute
International Council of Shopping Centers
National Association of Office, Industrial and Office Parks
Florida Bar Real Estate and Land Use Sections
Massachusetts Bar Real Estate Bar Association
State Bar Licenses
- Represented Vital Pharmaceuticals, Inc., maker of Bang Energy Drinks, in its $110mm purchase of newly completed, multi-building, Class A industrial development in Broward County, Florida. Later represented the company in its purchase of a $42mm industrial property in Georgia and placement of an economic development bond on the property. Also represented the company in the refinance of the company’s entire $300mm+ real estate portfolio as part of a $1b syndication loan. Later represented the company in selling the properties and terminating the Georgia bond in connection with high-profile bankruptcy reorganization and sale of company assets.
- Represented developer in adaptive reuse and redevelopment of the south end of Manchester, New Hampshire’s historic mill yard (now a burgeoning education and tech hub), for credit tenant Southern New Hampshire University. The project included two components: (i) constructing a new, built-to suit parking garage consisting of 1,700 spaces on a former surface parking lot; and (ii) repurposing the adjacent mill building into SNHU’s administrative offices. Associated transactions included closing the $8mm purchase of the land and mill building, negotiating and documenting two separate, bondable net leases for the garage and mill building, closing a $60mm construction loan from an institutional credit-tenant lender for garage construction and mill rehab, and creating an air parcel for the garage.
- Represented developer in a public-private partnership with the City of Kannapolis, North Carolina for large-scale, multi-phase redevelopment of the City’s historic downtown, where the site of the former Canon Mills complex is now a growing health education and tech hub. The representation included negotiating and documenting the public-private development agreement, purchase of various parcels of land from the City, various commercial leases and a hybrid debt-equity-opportunity zone financing vehicle with a large investment bank. The project components include several hundred apartment units in multiple newly constructed mixed-use structures, reintroduction of retail to downtown, adaptive reuse of two historic theaters and adaptive reuse of an old armory building, which is now a brewery.
- Represented developer in a public-private partnership with the City of Concord, North Carolina for redevelopment of three parcels in the City’s historic downtown into mixed use apartment buildings with ground floor retail.
- Represented developer in public-private partnership with City of Gastonia, North Carolina to redevelop the historic Trenton Mill. Associated transactions and matters included applying for and receiving local and federal historic designation and closing a historic tax credit financing vehicle for construction.
- Ongoing representation of several clients with single tenant net lease portfolios involving various types of credit-rated retail users, customarily involving 1031 exchange transactions on both the purchase and sale legs.
- Represented limited partners in equity investments into a diverse real estate portfolio, including a historic office building in downtown West Palm Beach, a net-leased, mission critical aerospace facility in Alabama and a three-state portfolio of Top Golf development sites.