Real Estate Leasing & Property Management

Leasing & Property Management

From office towers, big-box retail leases, and corporate headquarters relocations to national leasing programs and service agreements, we offer pragmatic and strategic counsel to property owners, managers, tenants, and prospective tenants. Applying decades of experience handling diverse property-related issues, we offer efficient, expeditious transaction execution, optimizing our clients’ market positions and maximizing leasing opportunities, creating and utilizing market-leading lease provisions that attract and retain, as clients, leaders and key players in the real estate industry.

Leasing Representation

Our team counsels clients throughout the lease life cycle, from initial negotiations through resolution of post-termination issues. We negotiate, draft, execute, interpret, and amend complex commercial leases and related agreements, including telecommunications and other licenses. Often, we are called on to negotiate the terms for corporate headquarters leases, build-to-suit, sale-leaseback arrangements, leveraged-lease transactions, ground leases, net leases, and special-use leases, as well as to assist in resolving landlord-tenant disputes. We advise on a wide range of other issues involving industrial, office, retail, multifamily, and mixed-use properties, including:

• Construction disputes
• Property development, entitlements, and zoning restrictions
• Tax structuring, credits, and incentives
• Assignments, subleases, and options
• Repair obligations
• Rental disputes

When needed, we call on Vinson & Elkins lawyers experienced in tax, labor and employment law, environmental matters, litigation, and restructuring and reorganization to assure comprehensive service regarding all of our clients’ real estate needs. Working closely with environmental specialists, we oversee regulatory matters, assure compliance, and address remediation and risk allocation.

Managing Properties & Personnel

Vinson & Elkins Real Estate lawyers help property owners and managers establish and implement volume-leasing programs, and create and regularly update forms for asset-management, property-management, and leasing agreements. We have drafted and maintain lease forms (for office, retail, and industrial products) used by, among others, Goldman Sachs, CBRE, Inc., CBRE Global Investors, CommonWealth Partners, J.P. Morgan Asset Management, Stream Realty Partners, Spear Street Capital LLC, Alex. Brown Realty, Inc., Odyssey Real Estate Capital, Piedmont Office Realty Trust, Wells Real Estate REIT, iStar Financial, Spear Street Capital, Cassidy Turley, and Woods Capital Management; our forms are currently used in 38 different states. We also negotiate, draft, and enforce service-provider, supplier, vendor, and brokerage agreements, as well as provide guidance on property management responsibilities, and property manager-owner and manager-tenant relations.

Data Center Leasing

Vinson & Elkins’ Real Estate practice represents landlords, tenants, developers, and other market participants in data center leasing transactions. Data center leases differ substantially from traditional commercial leases, presenting novel legal issues around power and cooling requirements, uptime and redundancy obligations, security and access provisions, risk allocation, and more. As demand for AI-ready infrastructure accelerates, these issues are becoming more complex and more consequential.

Our practice advises on the full spectrum of data center leasing matters — from wholesale and colocation leases to build-to-suit and sale-leaseback structures. Drawing on the firm’s broader capabilities in power, infrastructure, project finance, and tax, we bring a practical, solutions-focused approach to our data center work, helping clients navigate critical issues including:

• Power procurement and capacity rights — securing adequate power commitments, redundancy protections, and generator/UPS provisions
• Environmental and regulatory permitting — addressing zoning, land use, and compliance requirements for large-scale data center developments
• Construction and delivery risk — negotiating substantial completion milestones, delay remedies, and landlord build-out obligations
• Uptime and SLA obligations — structuring availability guarantees, maintenance windows, and liability caps
• Security, access, and compliance — tailoring access control, audit rights, and data sovereignty provisions for regulated industries
• Cost management and flexibility — structuring termination rights, expansion options, and pass-through limitations to support long-term business goals