A Conversation With ... Mike Nichols

Tell us about Husch Blackwell.
We’re a very large firm with more than 600 attorneys, and we’re what you would call a business firm. We do transactional work for businesses, business litigation and delving down into various areas. There’s really not anything that we don’t do for businesses. … We can provide all the services a business might need, even if somebody here in Springfield doesn’t do it on a daily basis. We have attorneys in other offices, but most of the primary services our clients in the Springfield area need, we’re able to provide locally. There are 31 attorneys in Springfield.

What is your practice focus?
I would break my practice down into three different areas. I do general corporate or business work, helping to form businesses and buy and sell businesses, with contract reviews and drafting on the corporate side. The second side of my practice is real estate development, which is probably more what people hear about because of the economic development tools I help my clients use. I represent developers, primarily in buying real estate, getting it zoned properly and working with the city and county to get construction plans – all those things that go along with developing property. Probably the most important part of that is the financing aspect. In this economy, that’s the toughest thing. … The third area is related to that indirectly. I do lending work for banks and represent a few banks around town.

As an attorney, how do you help your developer clients obtain financing?
There are some tools enacted by statute in the state of Missouri – and lots of states have them – and there are ways cities, counties and states can assist developers with their financing. For instance, you see in the news quite often community improvement districts, a tool (with which) you define a particular area is going to be, and within that area, the district is formed and can impose either real estate taxes, property taxes or sales taxes on all retail sales within that area. Those monies can be used to finance public improvements within the district. A CID doesn’t get the developer money upfront, so … he still has to get it financed upfront, but for instance, if you do the sales tax, as those taxes come in, he can get reimbursed for those public improvements. (Such tools) assist with (developers) getting financing, because they can go to the bank, and then the bank will take that reimbursement he’s going to get as collateral for the loan. There also are neighborhood improvement districts and tax-increment financing.

Beyond financing, what other legal hurdles do developers face?
That depends on the deal, but acquisition of the land is always something important, so you have to make sure when you enter into a contract that you have sufficient due diligence time and ability to make sure you’re able to do all other aspects of the development in addition to just buying the land. A developer doesn’t want to spend $2 million on a piece of land and, after the purchase, figure out there’s a problem with zoning or a sinkhole in the middle of the property.

Can you talk about a case you’re particularly proud of?
In Battlefield, I represented Larino Properties for a new development, Wilson’s Creek Marketplace, at the corner of FF and Republic Road, and we used some of the economic tools I talked about to make that happen. There’s a Price Cutter planned for it. … We worked with the city of Battlefield and Greene County to make that development work. It was a development that, frankly, Battlefield really needed. … There aren’t many services for residents in Battlefield proper, and that intersection is really the only major intersection that city has to not only provide those services for residents (and) to generate tax revenue. We’re also working on the Hickory Hills Marketplace at Highway 65 and Chestnut Expressway. (Developer Paul Larino) purchased approximately 80 acres there, and we’ll be doing a similar development, but we’re not quite as far along on that one.
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