Squire Patton Boggs is primed to do deals in the booming Phoenix market in 2016, having lured a partner and an associate from the real estate practice at competitor Perkins Coie.
Bart Page (pictured), who is licensed to practice law in Arizona and Nevada, advises investment funds, financial institutions, and homebuilders on real estate financings, acquisitions, development, and leasing. Page worked at Squire until about two and a half years ago, and cited the firm’s resources in areas such as restructuring, environmental law, and tax law as factors drawing him back. New associate Andrew Yacopis served as a vice president and branch manager for JPMorgan Chase in Phoenix before practicing law at Perkins Coie.
“I represent various developers, homebuilders, investment funds, financial institutions and healthcare providers in real estate and financing transactions in Arizona, Nevada and other western states. Recently, I represented Banner Health, a large hospital system in Phoenix, in connection with the relocation of its corporate headquarters to the Phoenix Plaza in central Phoenix. It was a challenging and exciting transaction,” Page commented.
In a discussion with IFLR1000, Page described the real estate market in Phoenix as improving steadily, with a concomitant construction boom. Page said that developers have worked through a considerable portion of the inventory left in the wake of the 2008-2009 downturn, resulting in growing demand for residential real estate.
“We were hit pretty hard by the great recession, but there’s a lot of construction going on now, and a lot of development. There’s a lot of opportunity here and the outlook for the future looks bright,” Page said. “Even though we are seeing more construction, there is still a lot of recovery needed to get back to the pre-recession numbers. The number of new construction permits for housing is still probably 50% below the number of construction permits issued prior to the downturn. I am not sure that we will ever get back to the pre-downturn numbers, but there’s still a lot of recovery left to go,” he added.
As encouraging as local trends are for transactional lawyers in the real estate sector, not all of the impetus for the boom is local.
“We have also seen foreign companies and investors getting into the market. When the Canadian dollar was strong, there was a lot of Canadian money coming down into Arizona. The state is also working hard to attract new businesses to Arizona. I expect that there will continue to be good job growth in the state. Arizona is a great place to live and attractive to new businesses and their employees,” Page said.
Page holds a J.D. from the University of Utah, and a B.S. from Weber State University.