At Winer & Winer, since we are in the business of
providing the highest quality, most responsive, service to our clients, we measure our success by our clients' success. To
Mr. Winer, his clients are more than just clients, they are partners to whom the highest loyalty is owed. Some of the assignments Winer & Winer and/or Winco Realty have
handled successfully are described briefly below, in these instances, in the real estate and franchise fields and, in each
instance, to some degree, demonstrate the talents brought to bare through the legal background offered thru Winer & Winer
and the brokerage background offered through Winco Realty.
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Lease Renewal/Rent Reduction Landlord, hoping to redevelop
a moribund shopping center into a mixed-use residential/retail project, sought to turn the shopping center site into a construction
zone and build around the few remaining retail Tenants which had already suffered in the shopping center for years while the
Landlord cleared out the shopping center of neighboring Tenants in anticipation of redevelopment. We researched the matter
and posed the theory that the Landlord could not change the nature of the development from a retail shopping center site into
a primarily residential site based on an implied "restrictive covenant" in the remaining Tenants' leases, coupled with the
fact that there were retail-oriented use clauses in most of the other leases in place in the shopping center. On behalf of
our client, we first sought to negotiate with the Landlord (as a matter of firm policy, in almost all circumstances, we first
try to negotiate solutions to clients' legal problems), seeking a rent reduction during the construction process and also
lease term extension for the timeframe after delivery of the new mixed-use project. When the Landlord refused to even negotiate,
we filed a declaratory judgment action in the Circuit Court for Montgomery County seeking an injunction restricting the Landlord
from changing of the nature of the shopping center on the basis that our client' s lease served as a restrictive covenant
on the Landlord's use of its own the site. Our client had suffered enough without neighbors; an extended construction period,
followed by life without a retail anchor tenant to attract shoppers, would have likely bankrupted our client. Based on the
strength of the restrictive covenant claim we put forward, and in the face of a Court order which would have prevented Landlord
from going forward with its mixed-use plans, we resolved the matter on behalf of our client without the matter even having
to go to Court by accepting the Landlord's offer to accommodate the tenant during the construction period and providing the
tenant with an attractive long-term lease following the delivery of the new mixed-use development. |
Franchise Strategy for Food Service Retailer We advised and
assisted a retail food client on converting its concept into a franchising model, going from a handful of shopping center
kiosk locations to a multiple-unit national operator and a registered franchisor of it retail food concept. We helped the
client purchase its initial four (4) units out of bankruptcy, on favorable terms, and then negotiated leases in super-regional
and regional shopping malls, mostly along the East coast, to the point of establishing approximately thirty (30) shopping
mall locations. We then handled the franchise registration process under various state franchising laws and statutes in order
to qualify the client to market and sell its concept and system on a franchise basis. We then assisted in the sale of both
franchises and in some cases the assets of particular locations it had already established. In addition to this franchise
situation, which was a matter of being involved from start to finish, we also handle franchise matters for both existing franchisors
as well as franchisees. |
Tenant Relocation between Nearby Shopping Centers A retail
jewelry client in a major retail shopping center was coming up on its 10th year anniversary and the expiration of its lease
term, without any renewal option. When the shopping center ownership changed hands and the new Landlord adopted a different
tenant-mix strategy, the new Landlord refused to offer an attractive lease renewal despite the fact that this tenant had been
one of the original Tenants at that particular shopping center and had been loyal during difficult times at the shopping center
for nearly 10 years. The new institutional Landlord had a preference for national retailers and a bias against local home-grown
retailers even thought this particular retailer operated three (3) locations in the Washington, DC metropolitan area and was
well-known locally. When negotiations with the new institutional Landlord slowed, sensing their preference for national names
but while continuing negotiations, on behalf of our jeweler client, we approached the adjacent regional shopping center about
their potential interest in bringing this local retailer to their center. They were delighted. We thus commenced simultaneous
negotiations with the adjacent regional shopping center and had two (2) fully negotiated deals in the end, with our choice
of locations. In the end, our dual-track strategy lead to a much more attractive deal at the adjacent regional shopping center,
with a more suitable tenant-mix and customer base, a new 10 year lease, immediately adjacent to the only the country's second
LL Bean superstore. |
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