Steven P. Heller | Attorney

Steven P. Heller is a partner with Gilchrist & Rutter. He handles all aspects of real estate transactions, focusing on commercial leasing, development and sales/acquisitions, with an emphasis on leasing retail, office and industrial properties.

Mr. Heller has represented institutional owners of highrise, suburban and other office projects in downtown and the westside of Los Angeles, Orange County, and the Inland Empire, as well as in Northern California, Philadelphia, and Salt Lake City.  He has also represented regional and local owners of shopping centers primarily in Southern California and throughout the Western U.S.

In addition, Mr. Heller served as Director of Leasing and Associate General Counsel for BH Properties, a national real estate investment company based in Los Angeles.  Previously, he was an associate with Gilchrist & Rutter, and with Pircher, Nichols & Meeks.

Clients have included Maguire Properties, Walton Street Capital, Thomas Properties Group, Caruso Affiliated, AIG Global Real Estate, International Airport Centers, and JPMorgan Chase, as well as many regional and local developers and businesses.

Mr. Heller earned his J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley Boalt Hall. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley after attending the University of Pennsylvania, where he was a Benjamin Franklin Scholar.

Representative Experience:

• Negotiated and documented numerous office lease transactions for major office projects in downtown Los Angeles, Santa Monica and Orange County.

• Negotiated and documented numerous retail lease transactions with national retailers, such as Staples, Starbucks, Walgreens, Wal-Mart, PetSmart and Ross.

• Oversaw all business and legal aspects of leasing activities for a privately held real estate company with over $500M of retail, office and industrial real estate throughout U.S.  Routine direct contact with national retailers, large industrial users and other tenants of all types, as well as with outside brokers and in-house acquisitions, leasing and asset management teams. 

• Negotiated business terms and documented two adjacent 50,000 sq. ft. leases in an empty former Wal-Mart in central Washington to a national big box sporting goods retailer for a retail store and to Amazon.com for a call center.

• Represented Eastman Kodak in its sale/leaseback of its 102,800 square foot Kodak Hollywood Campus, a two-building complex that houses Eastman Kodak offices, production facilities and screening rooms in Hollywood. 

• Represented landlord in a lease of an entire 3 story building of nearly 67,000 square feet of office space to the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, the organization that hands out the Grammy Awards, for its headquarters.

• Negotiated and documented the restructuring of owner participation agreements and ground leases for the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency with respect to complex parking arrangements among office and mixed use developments in downtown Los Angeles.

• Represented a variety of local and regional owners in developing, leasing, selling and acquiring various regional retail centers, primarily in Southern California and Arizona.

• Represented an institutional real estate equity fund in the sale of a national portfolio of twenty-one retail and industrial sites.

•  Negotiated and documented a 500,000 sq. ft. industrial lease to a national consumer products manufacturer in El Paso, Texas.

• Negotiated and documented the sale of a multi-unit apartment project in Santa Monica, California.

• Negotiated and documented several construction, architectural and consultant agreements with respect to office, retail and industrial projects of various size and complexity.

• Documented financing work for several large Los Angeles office projects.

• Handled wide variety of other real estate and business transactional matters, including management and leasing agreements, title review, tenant representation, financing and corporate formation and maintenance.