Construction
Examples of our recent work include:
Arora International Hotels
Advising Arora International Hotels on the £100m plus construction of the Sofitel London Heathrow hotel, the only hotel attached to the new Terminal 5. The building contract had to deal with complex risk allocation due to the proximity of the development site to both the terminal building and the Heathrow Express and London Underground rail boxes. A number of individual direct trade contracts were also required to achieve timely completion of the hotel.
Centros
Advising Centros on tailoring the building contracts and professional appointments to manage numerous interfaces between different aspects involved in the redevelopment and regeneration of Bury St Edmunds town centre. This included the construction of a new town hall and underground public parking as well as extensive retail and residential areas.
Derwent London
Advising Derwent London on the building contracts and professional appointments of the construction of a major headquarters office building in Paddington, west London. We were closely involved with the development aspects of the forward funding and pre-letting agreements to ensure that as many of the development risks assumed by the client under them could be devolved to the building contractor. There were also complex interfaces between the base building works and the tenant’s fitting out works that needed to be addressed.
Development Securities
Advising Development Securities on major office schemes in Southampton and the City of London including the involvement of the local authority as freeholder, whose requirements needed to be factored into the building contracts.
La Salle Investment Managers
Advising a LaSalle fund in joint venture with a specialist developer on the development of distribution warehouses in various strategic locations near to key motorway hubs. Often, this includes the remediation of brownfield sites and demolition of existing industrial premises, both of which present environmental risks which need to be managed through the construction contracts.
Leyton Sixth Form College
Working with Leyton Sixth Form College on a c£40m redevelopment of its campus, including new buildings and sports facilities as well as the improvement of existing buildings. Preliminary orders and letters of intent had to be entered into in order to maintain progress pending final confirmation of funding from the Learning and Skills Council.
TK Maxx
Advising TK Maxx on the construction and fitting out of individual stores. We have developed a suite of standard contracts, which accommodate its particular requirements as to how a typical job is packaged and allocated to different contractors.
Related practice areas
"The three-partner team at Macfarlanes receives praise from clients for its commercially oriented advice. The recent economic environment has resulted in a strong focus in contentious instructions, although it also has significant development expertise, recently advising European Land in negotiating professional appointments for the next phase of its development at Merchant Square in London."
Chambers UK 2012
"Macfarlanes LLP 'really knows its subject both from a technical and legal perspective'."
The UK Legal 500 2010