Amy C. Serafino

Principal

Amy’s practice focuses on commercial real estate transactions, specializing in commercial leasing, real estate development and construction, and acquisitions and dispositions. Her clients include sellers, buyers, owner/developers, contractors, landlords and tenants in a wide variety of commercial real estate transactions with respect to major industrial projects, large retail shopping centers, mixed-use developments and other premier real estate projects. She has extensive experience drafting and negotiating a broad range of real estate transactional documents including commercial leases and lease amendments for office, industrial and retail users; purchase and sale agreements; design and construction contracts (AIA and custom drafting) for large-scale commercial projects; and land contribution and joint venture development agreements. She has drafted and negotiated covenants, conditions and restrictions, reciprocal easement agreements, and other recordable documents, including use restriction and reciprocal easement agreements in connection with the parceling off of a large retail shopping center. In addition, she is experienced with title and survey review, having discovered and solved complex title and survey issues, as counsel to buyers and sellers in large commercial land transactions.

Amy represents a large investment fund (with assets in more than 35 different markets throughout the U.S.) in a wide variety of commercial real estate transactions, primarily focusing on the negotiating and drafting of commercial leases and lease amendments, as well as dispositions of real estate. She also served as the lead real estate counsel for the buyer of a Washington, D.C. office building in the acquisition and financing of the building, with the ultimate goal of converting the use from office to residential.

Amy has extensive experience drafting and negotiating construction and architect contracts for a variety of construction and development projects, including the complete overhaul of an existing office building to an educational facility, a construction management agreement for a minor-league baseball stadium, residential ground-up construction, and custom tenant buildout. As seller/developer’s counsel, she has drafted and negotiated a complex lot purchase agreement for the development and incremental sale of developable lots for a large residential townhome development in the D.C. area.

Outside of the office, Amy serves as an adjunct professor at Georgetown Law School, teaching a course on drafting and negotiating commercial real estate transactions. She is a member of the board of directors of Community Forklift, an organization dedicated to reducing or eliminating waste by recognizing, retaining, and returning used and surplus building materials to the community.

Amy’s passion for real estate extends well outside her professional life. She has built and renovated various residential properties in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. More recently, Amy and her husband are doing the same with a portfolio of vacation homes in the Shenandoah Valley. This hands-on experience provides her with insight and a unique ability to relate to her clients and offer real-world solutions.

Awards & Recognitions

• Lawdragon 500 Leading Global Real Estate Lawyers, 2024

Community Involvement

• Community Forklift, Hyattsville, Maryland – Member, Board of Directors

Publications

• Maryland Daily Record article, “Key Questions for Adaptive Reuse Projects,” 2023