Biography
Austin Thies focuses his real estate practice in land acquisitions, dispositions, development, and construction. He also focuses on real estate financial transactions for facilities purchases and development using a variety of financing methods, including representing borrowers in tax-exempt bond structures.
Austin's relevant experience includes:
- Representing commercial clients and national REIT clients in both single-site and large-scale portfolio transactions of commercial and industrial properties.
- Representing charter schools and other nonprofit corporations in connection with school facility acquisition and development using tax-exempt bond issuances.
- Negotiating, drafting, and analyzing all documentation related to real estate and financing projects, including purchase agreements, commercial lease documents, diligence materials, title and survey, and customary closing documents.
- Drafting and negotiating documents in connection with tax-exempt bond financing matters, including bond applications, disclosure statements for use in public offering documents, state intercept letters, trustee notices, trust indentures, loan documents, and financing agreements.
- Providing detailed analysis of matters involving significant issues arising from review of leases, title documents, third-party reports, and other diligence items.
- Providing representation and counsel involving ancillary matters such as corporate compliance, operational compliance, and best business practices.
Austin's recent representative experience includes:
- Served as borrower’s counsel in over $350 million collective tax-exempt bond-financed transactions for education development revenue issuances used for refunding, acquisition, and new construction projects – primarily representing charter-school corporations in Arizona.
- Represented a real estate and infrastructure owner, operator, lender and developer in connection with the $1.3 billion sale of 428 properties to a real estate investment trust.
- Represented real estate and infrastructure owner, operator, lender and developer in connection with the $625.3 million sale of 18 industrial properties to a property trust.
- Represented a fitness company in the acquisition of approximately 500 other fitness studio locations, analyzing terms and significant risks presented in existing retail leases to be assumed by client.
- Represented a real estate investment trust in connection with the $150 million acquisition of 46 restaurant properties from multinational real estate company.
- Represented a commercial client relating to the $650 million sale of client's multi-tenanted office building, focusing on contracts, assignability, and corporate structuring.
- Represented a national grocery-store chain with construction projects for use with client’s online ordering operations on a national and widespread scale.
Legal Services
Education and Honors
- University of Denver, Sturm College of Law (J.D., 2010)
- University of Arizona (B.A., summa cum laude, 2006)
Bar Admissions
- Arizona
- Colorado
Professional Recognition
- The Best Lawyers in America® "Ones to Watch," Real Estate Law, 2022