Etlin

Craig B. Etlin

Partner

Etlin

Areas of Expertise

In an era of increasing specialization in the legal industry, Craig Etlin is an old-school practitioner who serves as a counselor to his clients on virtually all legal aspects of their real estate transactions.

With four decades of transactional experience, Craig provides clients with practical advice on a wide range of matters, including acquisitions, sales, financing, negotiation of complex joint venture agreements, commercial and residential development projects, and large portfolio transactions.

Craig also counsels clients on workouts of troubled projects, including foreclosures, restructuring of debt, restructuring of equity and the resolution of partnership and construction disputes. Craig’s clients include domestic and foreign institutional investors and real estate developers.

Experience

  • For more than 30 years, representing in acquisitions, joint ventures, financing and dispositions. Recent notable transactions, each of which involve the negotiation of a joint venture and new financing, include:
    • Advised on the acquisition of Market Center, a two-tower, 767,000-square-foot Class A office complex in the San Francisco Financial District, marking the largest San Francisco office deal since 2022
    • Led negotiations in the acquisition of Fig Garden Village, the premier 300,000-square-foot shopping center in Fresno, CA.
    • Completed acquisitions of portfolios of industrial properties in the California Central Valley; Silicon Valley; Sparks, Nevada; and San Antonio and Plano, Texas, aggregating more than 4.5-million-square feet.

  • Represented Panoramic Interests LLC in connection with the acquisition, development and disposition of City Gardens, a 200-unit apartment complex in San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood, including effectively navigating COVID-19 disruptions to bring the project to completion.
  • Advised Emerald Fund, Inc. on redeveloping the former California State Automobile Association headquarters into two multifamily buildings with 838 units and ground-floor retail space. Negotiated joint ventures for each site with the pension fund that owned the site construction and permanent financing.
  • Negotiated the acquisition of 12 floors of the former IBM building in downtown Chicago and its redevelopment into the five-star luxury Langham Hotel, including a complex reciprocal access and easement agreement with the owner of the remainder of the building, architectural and construction contracts, and documents for the sale of historic tax credits.
  • On behalf of Wareham Development, negotiated a joint venture with a large institutional real estate investment fund for the future development of the sixth building at Wareham’s Emery Station life sciences campus.
  • Advised Wilson Meany in connection with joint ventures for developments of office and multifamily projects at Treasure Island in San Francisco and Bay Meadows in San Mateo, California.

Activities

  • Urban Land Institute
  • Lambda Alpha International, Land Economics Society