Financing Ground-Up Hotel and Hospitality Development Deals: Legal and Financial Issues
Completion Guaranties, GMP Construction Contracts, Ground Leases, Post-Completion Recourse, Management and Branding

Course Details
- smart_display Format
On-Demand
- signal_cellular_alt Difficulty Level
- work Practice Area
Real Property - Transactions
- event Date
Wednesday, August 10, 2022
- schedule Time
1:00 p.m. ET./10:00 a.m. PT
- timer Program Length
90 minutes
-
This 90-minute webinar is eligible in most states for 1.5 CLE credits.
This CLE course will discuss legal and financial issues involved in financing ground-up hotel development deals. The panel will review completion guaranties, GMP construction contracts, the impact of ground leases, reserves, post-completion recourse, management, and branding.
Faculty

Mr. Falik leads the firm's hospitality business, which includes equity and debt placement, asset acquisitions and dispositions, portfolio transactions, JV structuring, asset management, management company and brand evaluation, and strategic and capital markets advisory services. Previously, he was a Senior Managing Director and the Head of Hospitality Capital Markets at BGC Real Estate Capital Markets. Simultaneously, he was the Head of Hotel Investment Sales for Newmark Grubb Knight Frank. Prior to that, he was a Managing Director and Head of the Lodging and Leisure Investment Banking group at Cantor Fitzgerald & Co. Prior to joining Cantor Fitzgerald, he was the founder and CEO of JF Capital Advisors, a lodging advisory and principal investment firm.

Guy Maisnik has over three decades of commercial real estate transactions with a strong expertise in hotels and finance. A partner and Vice Chair of the JMBM Global Hospitality Group, Guy is a senior member of the JMBM Chinese Investment Group and a partner in the JMBM Real Estate Department. He advises clients on hospitality transactions, with both a practical business and legal focus, representing buyers, sellers, lenders, opportunity funds, special servicers, REITs and developers in hotel transactions, joint ventures, hotel management agreements and franchise agreements, buying, selling and ground leasing of hotels, complex mixed-used development and fractional and timeshare structuring.

Ms. Gorman focuses her practice on hospitality law, advising clients domestically and internationally on a broad spectrum of matters, including hotel acquisitions, licensing, branding, financings, operation, and development. She has extensive experience in management, licensing, and branding agreements for hotels, restaurants, water parks, and casinos. Ms. Gorman has represented a range of institutional investors in connection with their real estate investments, as well as governmental and quasi-governmental agencies with respect to their real estate holdings. In addition to her practice, Ms. Gorman is the Chair of the Timesharing and Interval Use Committee of the Hospitality Group of the Real Property and Probate Section of the ABA; Professor in Residence (Adjunct) at the Washington College of Law of American University in Washington, D.C., as part of the Hospitality and Tourism Law Program; and on the Board of Advisors of the Georgetown University Law Center’s Hotel & Lodging Legal Summit. She regularly speaks at conferences and seminars on real estate and hospitality topics and is the author of The Law Goddess Blueprint and a contributing writer to the textbook Hotel Law – Transactions, Management and Franchising.
Description
Post-pandemic construction delays have put holds on many commercial construction projects, but new hotel and hospitality developments are a hot asset class in the construction market. Besides debt and equity financing, counsel must address other financial issues and legal hurdles.
Developers seeking construction loans find nonrecourse debt more difficult or costly, so post-completion recourse guarantees must be a factor in the financing. Construction loans may require repayment guarantees but always require completion guaranties. The loan guarantor may minimize risk exposure with proper budgets, contingencies, or preset maximum price bids from the general contractor.
Ground leases are a vital component of ground-up hotel development but pose unique and complex risks for lenders and borrowers. Counsel must recognize critical differences between ground leases and other commercial leases and the impact of these differences.
Listen as our expert panel of hotel practitioners and finance professionals analyzes critical legal and financial issues in ground-up hotel development deals. The panel will discuss financing challenges, completion guaranties, GMP construction contracts, the impact of ground leases, reserves, post-completion recourse, management, and branding.
Outline
- Completion and other guaranties
- Guaranteed maximum price construction contracts
- Financing challenges
- Impact of ground leases
- Reserves
- Post-completion recourse
- Management
- Branding
- Qualified Opportunity Zone related party transactions
Benefits
The panel will review these and other key issues:
- What are the critical differences between post-completion recourse and completion guaranties? What financial risks do these guaranties present?
- What are the current market conditions for ground lease financing for hotel development?
- What are the complexities presented by ground leases?
- What role do hotel management and branding play in the ability to finance the hotel development deal?
- How do qualified opportunity zone investors impact the capital stack and structure strategies?
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