Resort, Hospitality and Leisure

Our firm is particularly strong in structuring and documenting planned and mixed-use luxury resort and urban communities, which may include multiple hotels, condominiums, condo hotels, timeshare and fractional products, private clubs, golf courses, beach amenities and clubs, marinas, spas, and public use spaces. We routinely negotiate development agreements with governments on behalf of our hospitality and leisure clients. We also have extensive experience in mergers, acquisitions, and financings in the resort, hotel, and leisure industry and significant experience in securing planning, permission, and zoning approvals for new hotels and refurbishment of existing hotel and resort projects to permit the construction of additional conference, sports, leisure, and gaming facilities.

We have experience representing owners, investors, operators, and lenders in delivering a full spectrum of services associated with financing hospitality real estate projects, ranging from straightforward acquisition, development, and construction loans, to bilateral and syndicated facilities, mezzanine and other subordinated debt facilities, and transactions involving highly complex vehicles, structures, and financing techniques.

We represent institutional investors and banks in the financing of industrial, commercial, and residential developments and have significant experience representing both lenders and borrowers in a variety of complex commercial mortgage finance transactions. These transactions include multi-property, cross-collateralized, and cross-border financings, as well as traditional single-asset mortgage financings. In addition, we assist in connection with creative financing techniques, such as shared appreciation mortgages, complex participation arrangements, Sharia-compliant loan structures, synthetic lease transactions, credit tenant leasing matters, leveraged leasing, and tax-exempt debt financing.

Our lawyers have experience representing borrowers, real estate lenders, and special servicers in loan restructurings and in negotiating the recapitalization of borrowing entities as part of an overall financial restructuring facility. Our team has handled numerous acquisitions and dispositions of distressed resort and hotel properties and associated note purchases and sales for both lenders and investors. We have a large team of lawyers dedicated to distressed real estate dispositions and, with more than 75 bankruptcy lawyers, K&L Gates has one of the strongest distressed real estate and insolvency practices in the world.

K&L Gates lawyers have extensive experience with all aspects of hotel law, representing master developers, investors, and operators in the negotiation of the standard agreements for major international hotel management groups in connection with hotel projects, including off-shore and on-shore hotel management agreements, asset management agreements, franchise agreements, resort club documents, rules and regulations, rental management agreements, amenity treaties, technical service agreements, licensing agreements, concession agreements, residential branding agreements, and management agreements. Our team also assists with documentation associated with the sale, acquisition, and financing of hotels and resorts that involve cross-border and international tax issue implications.

K&L Gates has significant experience in golf and club law, and our lawyers have worked on a variety of golf transactions, including acquisitions and sales, leases, sale-leasebacks, workouts and transition agreements, financings, management agreements, private clubs, golf usage and amenity treaties, golf course conversions and repositions, and member buy-outs.

At K&L Gates, we advise gaming and nongaming entities, including private and institutional investors and government agencies, with respect to the development, interpretation, and application of laws, regulations, and precedent applicable to casinos and the gaming industry. We facilitate interaction with, and regularly appear before, licensing commissions in a variety of jurisdictions, and we advise a spectrum of clients on issues related to tribal gaming in the United States. We have industry-specific experience in traditional gaming, as well as with respect to the tribal and online sectors. Our pertinent experience includes risk management, loss mitigation, compliance counseling, and litigation. We also have advised international gaming concerns with respect to employment and intellectual property matters and have developed an internationally recognized depth of experience advising clients seeking to offer online gaming opportunities to United States citizens.

Our lawyers have worked in numerous countries and regions that lack the legal and regulatory framework required to promote tourism and protect the basic rights and obligations of investors, developers, lenders, and purchasers. We work with governments in emerging markets on behalf of our clients to develop and implement modern development and title legislation and planning standards focused on sustainability to accommodate large-scale resort communities and allow the use of standard legal documentation for hotel and resort projects, which in turn promote tourism and direct investment within the countries.