For more than 20 years, Kutak Rock has cultivated a specialized practice in military housing privatization projects (including family housing, bachelor housing and lodging), all of which were financed with privately-placed securities offerings or negotiated bank loans. Our team understands all aspects of military housing development, finance and servicing, and we understand the transactions from every perspective. We have participated in more than 100 military housing privatization offerings having an aggregate principal amount exceeding $17 billion. Kutak Rock continues to work for clients on new military housing project financings and on modifications to existing transactions, energy production and savings projects relative to privatized housing, refinancings, restructurings and other similar activities.
Our clients include:
- Consultants to various branches of the United States government
- Investors
- Lenders
- Loan servicers
- Guarantors
- Developers and managers
We also provide legal and business advisory services to developers and utilities pursuing Utility Privatization opportunities under the military Utility Privatization program (where military services enter into 50-year contracts to operate and maintain water, wastewater, gas, electric and thermal systems.) Our practice involves government contracts, real estate, environmental and project financing experts within the firm to deliver comprehensive capabilities to our clients.
Focus on Military Housing
Military housing privatization transactions typically involve a long-term ground lease from the U.S. government of existing on-base residential neighborhoods and adjacent land coupled with the master-planned renovation, redevelopment and new construction of housing units. A typical project includes several thousand residential units, often at multiple sites across a number of jurisdictions.
We have experience representing every material type of transaction party and have been, at one time or another, the primary counsel responsible for all aspects of a project including:
- Review
- Negotiation
- Drafting
- Oversight of due diligence
- Acquisition
- Entitlement
- Planning
- Construction
- Subdivision
- Leasing
- Property tax
- Financing
- Joint venture development
- Historic preservation/cultural resource due diligence
- Negotiations with State Historic Preservation Officers and any affected parties
- Environmental due diligence and remediation
Military housing privatization projects are located on military bases across the nation and generally involve the redevelopment of land that at one time was used by the military for industrial or munitions purposes. We assist in addressing the environmental contamination and mitigation issues which often impact such sites. Additionally, we’ve taken lead roles in addressing infrastructure issues, federal contracting laws and processes (including Davis-Bacon Act requirements), real estate title and survey concerns, state taxation and regulation issues that often arise in complex military housing privatizations. Finally, we’ve worked on all aspects of capital markets transactions that finance military housing privatizations, from addressing securities law issues to assisting in the preparation of disclosure documents and structuring and drafting loan and collateral documents. Our extensive experience allows us to proactively identify potential issues and suggest proven solutions.
In addition, we have extensive experience working on the implementation and servicing of these projects and assisting entities in acquiring and restructuring underperforming transactions. Our experience in the implementation phase of military privatization projects continues to inform the advice we provide our clients in the earlier financing and structuring phases, and has resulted in transactions that not only close, but provide workable, balanced mechanisms for addressing the inevitable post-closing issues.
