Dara Denberg helps clients successfully navigate a broad spectrum of complex real estate transactions, with a particular focus on joint ventures, mergers and acquisitions of real estate-based companies, and sale leasebacks.

Dara serves as a go-to advisor on the full range of clients’ real estate matters and draws on her broad-based transactional experience to guide key market players, including private equity and other investors, as well as portfolio companies, on: 

  • Joint ventures
  • M&A and carve-outs
  • Single asset and portfolio acquisitions and dispositions
  • Sale leasebacks
  • Financings

She develops customized and commercially driven strategies for clients by working to understand their business needs, priorities, and values. She regularly handles clients’ most significant matters across an array of asset classes, including data centers, hotels and casinos, warehouses and medical facilities, residential developments, assisted living, and skilled nursing facilities.

Dara maintains an active pro bono practice, including managing real estate matters on behalf of charter schools across the United States and property sales for Crosscut Mountain Sports Center.

A recognized leader at the firm, Dara has served as Co-Chair of the Recruiting Committee in New York and as a member of the Pro Bono and Training and Career Enhancement (TACE) Committees. 

Dara's experience includes advising:

Joint Ventures

  • AGC Equity Partners on its joint venture with Iron Mountain to design and develop a 280,000 square foot, 27-megawatt hyperscale data center in Frankfurt, Germany
  • Partners Group on multiple transactions, including:
    • Its platform joint venture with Hasta Capital to recapitalize a multi-family asset in Virginia; acquire a mixed-use asset in Washington, D.C.; and acquire a multi-family asset in Arizona
    • Its joint venture with EverWest Real Estate Investors to acquire and finance Burlingame Bay Office Park, an office building in California
    • Its joint venture with Mainstreet Capital Partners and NCC Development Group to acquire and own an office building, as well as to finance, develop, and operate a residential apartment project in Florida
  • H.I.G. Realty Partners on multiple transactions, including:
    • Its joint venture with Lincoln Equities Group to acquire a 1.2 million square foot life sciences campus in Hopewell, New Jersey, involving entitlement and environmental issues
    • Various joint ventures with Driftwood Hospitality in multiple hotel investments across the country
  • Olympia Companies on joint ventures with a private equity company to recapitalize residential developable land in Las Vegas, Nevada
  • Selina Hospitality Group on a partnership to fund, develop, and operate Selina-branded hospitality venues in Chile and Mexico 
  • A global financial institution investor in multiple joint ventures and development agreements with local homebuilders to develop and sell residential homes in Maryland, Utah, and Texas
  • A gaming company on a joint venture with an investor to own and operate gaming facilities and racetracks in Ohio, as well as related development matters
  • A financial institution on a joint venture with a national hotel company to acquire and finance the acquisition of Red Roof Inns with more than 200 properties nationwide
  • A large US company on its joint venture with a healthcare REIT in the portfolio sale of more than 80 medical office buildings

Acquisitions and Dispositions

  • A foreign investor on acquiring a 100% equity interest in the owner of the Plaza Hotel in New York
  • AGC Equity Partners on multiple transactions, including:
    • Acquiring and financing an office campus in Northern California
    • Acquiring and financing, and subsequently selling, five warehouses in Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee
    • Acquiring and financing an office building in Texas
    • Disposing of an office/data center facility in Virginia
  • A large financial institution on dispositions of multiple REO assets, including office buildings, resorts, and developable land
  • A national REIT on acquiring of 13 shopping centers in New York and New Jersey 

M&A

  • Leonard Green on its take-private of Life Time, utilizing multi-asset/multi-buyer sale leaseback transactions to fund a portion of the acquisition price
  • Archroma, an SK Capital Partners portfolio company, on the real estate aspects of acquiring Huntsman Corporation’s textile effects business, including multiple lease arrangements across multiple countries
  • Titan Acquisition Holdings, a portfolio of The Carlyle Group and Stellex Capital Partners, on its lease negotiations with the Port of San Diego in connection with Titan’s acquisition of the San Diego Shipyard of Huntington Ingalls Industries
  • GFL Environmental, a leading North American diversified environmental services company, on all real estate matters in multiple acquisitions, including in connection with acquiring a portfolio of vertically integrated solid waste collection, transfer, and disposal assets from Waste Management and Advanced Disposal
  • Ares Management on real estate matters in connection with its acquisition of Black Creek Group’s US real estate investment advisory and distribution business
  • The Carlyle Group on:
    • The real estate aspects of acquiring AkzoNobel’s specialty chemicals business unit, renamed Nouryon
    • The real estate aspects of acquiring Dupont’s performance coating business, including new lease arrangements
  • Onex Corporation on all real estate matters, including real estate carveout arrangements, in connection with its acquisition of Thomson Reuters’ IP and science research business unit

Sale Leasebacks

  • Life Time on multiple sale and leaseback transactions involving over 45 assets, including single-asset and multi-asset portfolio transactions across the United States
  • LOC Performance in the sale and leaseback of two manufacturing facilities
  • Multiple Carlyle portfolio companies on sale leasebacks of manufacturing, industrial, and education assets, including MHI Holdings on its multi-asset sale leaseback to Oak Street Capital
  • Spirit Realty on various acquisitions and leaseback transactions, including Way Interglobal’s headquarters in Indiana
  • An Onex portfolio company on the multi-asset sale and leaseback of residential treatment centers

Financing and Distressed Assets

  • Wolfspeed, a leading semiconductor technology company, on the real estate aspects of two financing transactions totaling up to US$4 billion
  • Moran Foods, an Onex portfolio company, on all real estate matters connected to a comprehensive recapitalization, including negotiating complex store conversion mechanics and four tranches of secured debt, each secured by 38 properties in 14 states
  • A consortium of land developers on successfully restructuring a US$200 million loan, which involved bankruptcy proceedings

Bar Qualification

  • Florida
  • New York

Education

  • JD, New York University School of Law, 2001
  • BA, Dartmouth College, 1998

Practices