What types of data center transactions do you handle?

I advise clients on real estate transactions involving data centers at various stages of ownership and development, including acquisitions, dispositions, development, redevelopment, financing and leasing. In the past few years, I have also been frequently involved in powered land assemblages. My experience includes individual facilities and multi-site portfolios, as well as colocation facilities and related digital infrastructure.

How have sale/leasebacks featured in your data center practice?

My work has included representing a Fortune 500 financial services firm in the sale and partial leaseback of its two key data centers and advising another client on the acquisition of a facility in Toronto that included a partial leaseback to the seller. I have also structured and implemented sale/leaseback transactions involving individual and multi-site data centers. Similarly, I have structured solar sale leasebacks for clients. These matters draw on my broader experience handling hundreds of sale/leasebacks across a range of commercial property types around the US.

What experience do you have with the redevelopment of properties for data center use?

I represented a client in the redevelopment (and subsequent lease-up) of an existing industrial property into a data center. The representation included financing the construction, obtaining government incentives for the development and coordinating the sale of a joint venture interest in the property to a major real estate investment firm. I have also advised on the acquisition of a historic property in Chicago for development as a data center.

How do joint ventures factor into your work with data center properties?

I have advised clients on a number of transactions involving joint venture structures. My experience includes the acquisition of a data center in a joint venture with a major real estate investment firm, the sale of a majority interest in an existing facility through a joint venture in which the client remained the managing member, and programmatic joint ventures involving multiple data center properties.

What experience do you have with data center portfolios and multi-property transactions?

My data center work includes several programmatic joint ventures involving multiple properties and their subsequent leasing and redevelopment, as well as sale/leaseback transactions involving multi-site facilities (including transactions of 50-200 locations). More broadly, I have handled commercial real estate transactions ranging from individual properties to portfolios involving up to 1,400 properties.

Stephen Friedberg

Partner New York

T +1 212.835.4845

[email protected]

Biography

Stephen Friedberg is a partner in Haynes Boone's New York office whose commercial real estate practice places particular emphasis on data centers and digital infrastructure, sale/leaseback transactions, ground leasing and development projects. He also does substantial work in leasing, acquisitions, dispositions and financings. With more than 45 years of experience in commercial real estate law, Stephen advises clients on transactions across the United States, from individual properties to portfolios involving up to 1,400 properties.

Stephen advises clients on the acquisition, disposition, development, redevelopment, financing and leasing of data center properties. His work spans individual facilities and multi-site portfolios, including sale/leasebacks, acquisitions coupled with leasebacks to sellers, and the conversion and lease-up of industrial properties for this specialized use. He also handles matters involving colocation facilities and related digital infrastructure, including radio and TV station broadcast antenna sites, distributed antenna systems, fiber optic systems, cellular antenna sites, broadband infrastructure, and solar sites.

His experience encompasses the range of real estate structures used in the investment and development of these assets. Stephen has represented clients in connection with construction financing and government incentives for redevelopment projects, the sale of interests in joint ventures, and transactions in which owners retained management interests following a sale. He has also advised clients on programmatic joint ventures involving multiple facilities and their subsequent leasing and redevelopment, as well as the acquisition of properties for development as data centers.

His work also includes the development and construction of distribution facilities, high-rise residential buildings and shopping centers, as well as public-private development projects and financial restructurings for developers and property owners.

Before joining Haynes Boone, Stephen represented a major drugstore chain in leasing, acquisitions and sale/leaseback transactions, including the acquisition of large chains of drugstores (encompassing more than 2,500 locations, in the aggregate). In addition to private practice, Stephen served as in-house counsel to a major shopping center developer, overseeing the acquisition, development, financing, and leasing of numerous properties.

Expand All

: Led the structuring and implementation of sale/leasebacks of retail, industrial and medical office building properties. Our firm has done more than 50 sale leasebacks for CVS, alone, and Stephen has also done sale/leasebacks for a number of other clients, including transactions involving individual and multi-site data centers, industrial properties, chains of gas station/convenience stores and medical office buildings.

Represented a New York real estate development firm in the development of a three tower luxury apartment complex in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and in a $330,000,000 construction loan.

Represented a client in the purchase of a shopping center in Las Vegas, involving five separate purchasers, three of which had identified this property as replacement properties in 1031 exchanges. This transaction involved structuring a tenancy in common agreement among the parties, a management structure below that, a complex lending structure including separate loans to both the fee owner and to the ground lessor under an existing ground lease which tenants-in-common also acquired, to yield higher loan proceeds.

Represented a large national retailer in the developments of two 800,000 square-foot distribution centers (one in upstate New York and the other in Kansas City, Missouri), including acquisitions of the properties, structuring and obtaining public-private partnership incentives and creating opportunities for future sale/leasebacks of the properties.

Represented a major real estate investment fund client in the structuring of a program to split several of its office buildings into fee and ground lease estates and selling the improvements to the buyer and entering into 99 year ground leases with the buyer; and the subsequent completion of three transactions, to date, for such client.

Represented a client in the opportunistic sale of its headquarters building in a bidding war between two potential buyers, the buyout of tenants, a 3 year extension of the closing date to accommodate the ultimate purchaser’s development and financing of its proposed project (which led to a significant increase in the purchase price), structuring the financing by our client of low income inclusionary zoning credits that were acquired by the purchaser (which was repaid at the closing of the sale), setting up and implementing a 1031 tax deferred exchange at the closing and representing our client in the acquisition of a newly developed, luxury apartment building, as a replacement property.

Represented a Fortune 500 financial services firm in the sale and partial leaseback of two of its key data centers.

Represented a client in the acquisition of a data center in Toronto that included a partial leaseback to the seller, in a joint venture with a major real estate investment firm.This transaction also included complex tax structuring for the U.S.-based client and its investor.

Represented a client in the redevelopment and lease-up of an existing industrial property as a datacenter, including the financing of the construction, obtaining government incentives for the development and coordination of the sale of a joint venture interest in the property to a major real estate investment firm.

Represented a client in the lease-up and sale of a majority interest in an existing datacenter in Cheyenne, Wyoming to a real estate investor, in which our client remained the managing member of the facility through a joint venture with the purchaser.

Represented a client in a programmatic joint venture including 8 data center properties and the subsequent leasing and re-development of the data centers.

Represented a client in the purchase of an historic property in Chicago for development as a datacenter, including satisfying the requirements of the joint venture partner in the purchasing entity.

Represented a real estate investment firm in the acquisition of two large parcels of land in Westchester County, New York and the subsequent development of them as a shopping center and a mixed use, retail/office property, respectively.This representation also included the lease-up and financing of each property.

Represented a value-added real estate investment firm in the creation of four real estate funds and the subsequent acquisitions, lease-up and financings of numerous properties for such funds.
: Featured in Best Lawyers in America, Real Estate Law (2024 - 2027)
Included in New York Super Lawyers, Thompson Reuters, Real Estate list (2007, 2011 – 2019)
Martindale-Hubbell AV Preeminent
: “Commercial Lease Termination,” Speaker, Lorman Education Services, August 14, 2024

“Allocating Risk in Real Estate Leases: Contractual Indemnities, Additional Insured Endorsements, Subrogation Waiver,” Speaker, Strafford CLE webinar, November 21, 2023 (Repeated on December 8, 2025)

“Commercial Ground Leases: A Conceptual Framework,” Speaker, Lorman Education Services, May 25, 2022

Workshop: The Nuts and Bolts of Estoppels, SNDAs and Recognition Agreements: Why and How To (Workshop Leader, 2020 International Council on Shopping Centers Law Conference)

Workshop: Found Money! Creative Methods for Monetizing Underutilized Real Estate (Workshop Leader, 2019 International Council on Shopping Centers Law Conference)

Leading the Curve: Capital, Development End User Demand and the Evolving New Jersey Data Center Market,” Moderator, DICE New Jersey, October 22, 2019

“Engaging the CRE Tenant,” Panelist, GlobeSt Net Lease 2019 Conference, April 4, 2019

“Seminar 11 Financeable Retail Leases: A Guide for the Perplexed,” Speaker, International Council of Shopping Centers, October 29, 2015
: Education
J.D., Case Western Reserve University School of Law
B.A., Cultural Anthropology, Michigan State University
Admissions
New Jersey
New York
Ohio
: What types of data center transactions do you handle?
I advise clients on real estate transactions involving data centers at various stages of ownership and development, including acquisitions, dispositions, development, redevelopment, financing and leasing. In the past few years, I have also been frequently involved in powered land assemblages. My experience includes individual facilities and multi-site portfolios, as well as colocation facilities and related digital infrastructure.
How have sale/leasebacks featured in your data center practice?
My work has included representing a Fortune 500 financial services firm in the sale and partial leaseback of its two key data centers and advising another client on the acquisition of a facility in Toronto that included a partial leaseback to the seller. I have also structured and implemented sale/leaseback transactions involving individual and multi-site data centers. Similarly, I have structured solar sale leasebacks for clients. These matters draw on my broader experience handling hundreds of sale/leasebacks across a range of commercial property types around the US.
What experience do you have with the redevelopment of properties for data center use?
I represented a client in the redevelopment (and subsequent lease-up) of an existing industrial property into a data center. The representation included financing the construction, obtaining government incentives for the development and coordinating the sale of a joint venture interest in the property to a major real estate investment firm. I have also advised on the acquisition of a historic property in Chicago for development as a data center.
How do joint ventures factor into your work with data center properties?
I have advised clients on a number of transactions involving joint venture structures. My experience includes the acquisition of a data center in a joint venture with a major real estate investment firm, the sale of a majority interest in an existing facility through a joint venture in which the client remained the managing member, and programmatic joint ventures involving multiple data center properties.
What experience do you have with data center portfolios and multi-property transactions?
My data center work includes several programmatic joint ventures involving multiple properties and their subsequent leasing and redevelopment, as well as sale/leaseback transactions involving multi-site facilities (including transactions of 50-200 locations). More broadly, I have handled commercial real estate transactions ranging from individual properties to portfolios involving up to 1,400 properties.