Aviva Yakren

Aviva represented:

• Merchants Capital Corp. as Freddie Mac’s seller/servicer in its credit enhancement of a portion of the US$236 million financing provided by the New York City Housing Development Corporation to a public-private partnership that ground leased Harlem River Houses from the New York City Housing Authority to renovate and modernize over 690 apartments in eight buildings.
• A major global investment bank as lender, letter of credit issuer, and equity investor in connection with the development of a mixed-use project in New York City that will contain the new headquarters and conference center for a national civil rights and urban advocacy organization, a civil rights museum, 170 affordable rental housing units as well as office and retail space.
• A major financial institution in connection with the issuance of a letter of credit for the construction of an 11-story building containing 93 units, plus one superintendent’s unit, located at 2264 Morris Avenue, Bronx, New York.*
• A major financial institution as construction lender in connection with the construction of a condominium building in New York City, New York.*
• A major financial institution in connection with its financing of an administrative building for a mental healthcare facility in New Haven, Connecticut, structured in part by new markets tax credits.*
• A major financial institution in the formation of a joint venture with a real estate agency to enter into a 99-year ground lease with the City of New York on a 7.9 acre site directly adjacent to the Staten Island Ferry terminal, and to develop and finance 340,000 square feet of commercial space that will be New York City’s first outlet shopping center.*
• A real estate investment firm in connection with the formation of a joint venture to enter into a long-term (96-year) ground lease with the Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation for the redevelopment of a 350,000-square-foot Civil War-era warehouse building, and the new construction of a glass enclosed 70,000-square-foot addition.*
• A major financial institution in its role as direct purchaser of approximately US$72.7 million of Tax-Exempt Bonds issued by the New York City Housing Development Corporation to finance the construction of a 32-story residential project in Long Island City, New York.*
• A major financial institution in connection with the financing of a complex mixed-use development in Brooklyn that will consist of an approx. 700,000-square-foot retail podium, with two residential towers atop the podium.*
• A real estate investment firm in its acquisition of 530 Fifth Avenue office and retail property for US$390 million in a joint venture with three real estate groups.*
• A major financial institution, as lender in a US$300 million market rate condo and affordable housing mixed-use development off the beach in Santa Monica, California.*
• A subsidiary of a major financial institution, in its private equity investment in the holding company, a St. Louis-based developer of affordable urban housing.*
• A major financial institution in successfully defeating motion by a bank to preliminarily enjoin the financial institution from drawing down on a US$103 million letter of credit.*

Aviva advised:

• A major financial institution, the credit enhancer and construction loan administrator and servicer, in one of the largest bond and low-income-housing tax-credit-financed public housing deals in U.S. history.*

*The above matters were handled by Aviva prior to joining Sidley.