Joanne Franzel is Of Counsel in Gibson Dunn’s New York office. She is a member of the Firm’s Real Estate Practice Group. Ms. Franzel was a full-time associate for seven years before becoming first a part-time staff attorney, and later Of Counsel.
After earning her Juris Doctor, cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania, she joined the Firm in 1980 in Los Angeles. In 1982, she and a Gibson Dunn partner founded the Firm’s New York office.
Ms. Franzel’s practice has included all forms of real estate transactions, including acquisitions and dispositions and financing, as well as office and retail leasing with anchor, as well as shopping center tenants. She also has represented a number of clients in New York City real estate development, representing developers as well as users in various mixed-use projects, often with a significant public/private component.
She handled the site acquisition for the Atlantic Terminal Shopping Center in Brooklyn, New York, on behalf of the developer, Forest City Ratner Companies. This included negotiation of a long-term ground lease and construction agreement and related easements. The project includes a 300,000 square foot retail shopping center located on a development pad built over a Long Island Rail Road and MTA subway station.
Ms. Franzel also represented Edison Schools, Inc. in a plan to develop a mixed-use project at Fifth Avenue and 110th Street in Harlem. The project, which was ultimately abandoned, was to include Edison’s New York office headquarters, an elementary school operated by Edison and a new home for the Museum for African Art. The representation included all phases of pre-development including acquisition of private land, supervision of successful ULURP process and other land use approvals, negotiation of a contract to acquire City land under a sole-source designation, negotiation of a public incentives package and structuring and negotiation of a joint venture with the Museum and a development agreement with Hines Interests, which was selected as the developer for the project.
Additionally, Ms. Franzel represents the owners of Chelsea Market and 1250 Broadway. Recent large leases she has handled for these landlords include the new Anthropologie store at Chelsea Market and several full-floor leases at 1250 Broadway. As tenants counsel, she has represented Bowne & Co. in a 200,000 square foot headquarters lease at 55 Water Street, a boutique investment banking firm in a new headquarters lease at the Citigroup Center and numerous other leases of New York City commercial office and retail space.
Ms. Franzel did her undergraduate work at Brown University, where she received a Bachelor of Arts degree, cum laude, in 1977.
