Mary H. Allen

Mary advises on a wide array of business transactions. In her real estate practice, she represents developers, purchasers, sellers, landlords and tenants in a variety of commercial real estate transactions, including acquisitions, dispositions, leasing, development approvals and creative financing solutions. She is experienced in drafting contracts, leases, easements, condo regime documents, development agreements, and restrictive covenants and has represented landlords and tenants in retail, office and industrial leasing. She also serves as outside counsel for organizations in regard to governance issues, vendor relationships and public-private partnership agreements. Mary is the current Chair of the McGinnis Lochridge Women's Initiative Committee.

Prior to joining McGinnis Lochridge, Mary was the Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel for Waterloo Greenway Conservancy, the 501c3 partner organization to the City of Austin, where she managed the day to day operations of the organization in its mission to design, construct and manage a chain of parks along Waller Creek in downtown Austin. Her past experience also includes overseeing the human resources, accounting and finance, and facilities departments, and managing an internal legal team as Chief Operating Officer of a privately held, national retailer based in Austin.

Real Estate

• Represented large shopping center developers in connection with all aspects of development, including land acquisition, entitlements, construction and leasing.
• Negotiated and drafted anchor, junior anchor and specialty retail tenant leases for developers of shopping centers.
• Represented large regional retailer in negotiation of retail leases.
• Negotiated financing arrangements for acquisition and construction of projects.
• Directed due diligence investigation for prospective sites, including review of title and survey, environmental, land use and related development issues.
• Represented owner of commercial office buildings in acquisition and disposition of assets.
• Represented national and regional tenants in retail, office and industrial leasing.
• Created condo regime documents for ground up projects as well as condo conversions.

Other

• Served as outside general counsel to nonprofit organizations handling a wide array of legal issues, including contract negotiation, governance issues and employment matters.
• Represented non-profit organization in connection with negotiation of a public-private partnership agreement with the City of Austin.
• Represented non-profit organization in the negotiation of a production service agreement for the operation of an amphitheater.