JoAnne is a real estate and land use transactional shareholder in Miller Starr Regalia’s Walnut Creek office. She was formerly a shareholder at Ellman Burke Hoffman & Johnson, a San Francisco real estate law firm, and served as Regional Counsel for The Trust for Public Land in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
She represents property owners, commercial developers, governmental entities and other institutions in real property transactions, land use regulation and development, with a particular emphasis on public/private partnership transactions, including redevelopment and entitlement of under-performing properties, mixed-use development, transit-oriented development, and rehabilitation and adaptive reuse of historic properties. She also specializes in redevelopment and military base reuse transactions.
EDUCATION
JoAnne received a J.D. from the University of California Hastings College of the Law in 1990, and earned a bachelor’s degree, cum laude, from the University of Arizona in 1977.
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Her experience includes complex real property development, project approvals and entitlements, reciprocal easement agreements, leasing, regulatory and permitting matters, purchase and sale agreements, title and escrow matters, due diligence investigations of properties, preparation of request for proposals, exclusive negotiation agreements, development agreements, disposition and development agreements, and other development and operational agreements, as well as structuring transactions to facilitate tax credits, such as historic tax credits or affordable housing tax credits, and other funding sources.
JoAnne has acted as counsel for several large commercial, residential and hospitality projects, such as working with a major national defense contractor in entitling its large land holdings for disposition and development, representing a commercial developer in a series of complex lot line adjustments of a large, silicon valley, business park, which obtained increased density with transit-oriented zoning and later facilitated an office condominium development, negotiating an infrastructure consortium agreement on behalf of a developer, and entitlement and transactional work on behalf of the developer of the Ritz-Carlton Half Moon Bay hotel.
On the private side, JoAnne’s significant public/private partnership and redevelopment projects include representing the developer in obtaining and negotiating the final map and related CC&Rs with San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART) and the County for development of the Pleasant Hill transit village (now known as the Contra Costa Centre Transit Village), which is a phased project developed through 99-year leases on BART property. She also represented the developer in negotiating complex reciprocal easement agreements, subleases and other transactional agreements in connection with the development of the Four Seasons tower, Jessie Square Garage, and The Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco. She has been engaged to assist a developer in negotiations with the Presidio Trust for the adaptive reuse and redevelopment of 12 buildings known as the Thornburgh Buildings and Gorgas Warehouses in the Presidio in San Francisco and is representing a developer to negotiate a Disposition and Development Agreement and related for agreements for development of a mixed-use retail project with affordable housing in the Barrio Logan Redevelopment Project Area in San Diego.
On the public side, JoAnne’s significant public/private partnership, redevelopment and military base reuse projects include, representing the City of Alameda entities, including its reuse authority, redevelopment agency, and the Housing Authority, in connection with redevelopment of two former military bases, the former Navy Fleet and Industrial Supply Center (FISC) and the North Housing Parcel. She also represented the City of Alameda entities in connection with the negotiation of an Exclusive Negotiation Agreement for the Naval Air Station (now known as Alameda Point). In addition, she is special counsel to the National Park Service and has negotiated the three largest long-term lease transactions in the National Park system nationwide: (1) the adaptive reuse and development of Fort Baker in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA) as a retreat and conference center known as Cavallo Point - The Lodge at the Golden Gate; (2) the conversion of Fort Mason Center in GGNRA to a lease to facilitate financing phased historic rehabilitation and preservation of the cultural center; and (3) adaptive reuse of a national historic landmark building in San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park near Fisherman's Wharf as the Argonaut Hotel and a Visitor Center for the park. She recently represented the National Park Service in the negotiations of lease documents and a project development agreement for the historic rehabilitation and adaptive reuse of the Oilhouse as a Visitor Education Center for Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historical Park at Point Richmond. She was also engaged by Solano County in connection with the redevelopment of the Solano County Fairgrounds.
Prior to practicing law, for five years JoAnne worked for the federal government in federal, state and local land planning and management, and five additional years in the private sector as a planner, writer and editor in Anchorage, Alaska.
ASSOCIATIONS
She serves as an annual panelist and moderator of the Recent Developments in Real Property Law Practice for California Continuing Education of the Bar (CEB). JoAnne has also given continuing legal education presentations on public/private partnerships, land use and development.
JoAnne serves on the Boards of the John Muir Association and the Bay Planning Coalition, and is the Literary Resources Editor of National Resources & Environment (a national publication of the American Bar Association, Section of Environmental, Energy, and Resources). She served as an advisor to CEB on California Easements and Boundaries: Law and Litigation and on Ground Lease Practice, Second Edition. She is a member of the State Bar of California, the American Bar Association, and the Contra Costa County Bar Association. JoAnne is also a member of Commercial Real Estate Women-San Francisco, the Urban Land Institute, and the California Redevelopment Association.
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