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Clifford H. Swain is a member of the firm's Real Estate Practice Group, its former administrative chair and a former managing partner of the firm. He has concentrated his practice in real estate transactions and related issues since 1979, representing developers and other investors in all aspects of the acquisition, development, financing, leasing and sale of downtown and suburban offices, flex and warehouse properties, and in the negotiation of complex joint ventures and development agreements. Recently Cliff has had significant experience in the workout and restructuring of real estate loans for owners and lenders, both inside and outside of bankruptcy.
Restructuring. The changed credit and underwriting markets in the early 1990s have resulted in the need for the owners of many properties to restructure their debt. Some restructurings are required by reason of the depressed rental markets and the inability of properties to achieve pro formas. Others are the result of a maturity of an interim or permanent loan and the changed underwriting and loan criteria which makes replacement permanent financing unavailable or available in insufficient amounts. Still others result from the need for the investment of additional capital to restore, refurbish or retrofit a building and the unwillingness of the owner thereof to make such investment because of the size or terms of existing financing. Cliff has been involved, on behalf of a major mortgage lender, in the recent restructuring of loans on a shopping center in Atlantic County, New Jersey; a regional mall in Central Pennsylvania; a suburban office park in Atlanta, Georgia; and a corporate park in Indianapolis, Indiana. Cliff has also represented owners and developers in resolving troubled and/or matured loans. He has led a Drinker Biddle team of attorneys which has taken an investment partnership through a Chapter 11 filing and plan of reorganization pursuant to which a major office building was sold to the lender. He has also represented a developer in the restructuring of an entire portfolio of matured construction loans into mini-permanent loans with options to extend.
Center City Office Towers. A significant portion of Cliff's practice over the years has been in the representation of developers and investors in the acquisition, construction, financing, leasing and sale of major office towers in central Philadelphia. Buildings now or formerly represented by Cliff include 1600 Market Street, 1760 Market Street, 1818 Market Street, 2000 Market Street and 1800 and 1880 JFK Boulevard. These transactions have given Cliff significant experience in joint venture structures with institutional investors, participating loans, participating land sale-leasebacks and other forms of sophisticated financing structures for major office projects.
Government Assisted Transactions. As equity sources have become scarce, many of Cliff's clients have structured development projects aided, in part, by governmental assistance in the form of grants, subordinate loans and/or subordinate equity. Recent transactions have involved work with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the New Jersey Economic Development Authority, the New Jersey Department of the Treasury, the Pennsylvania Department of Commerce, the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation, the Philadelphia Department of Commerce, the Montgomery County Redevelopment Authority and the Borough of Conshohocken in Montgomery County.
In General. Cliff is married and lives in the Mount Airy section of Philadelphia. | 