National | December 8, 2020

Lawyers in Real Estate 2020: Akerman’s Eric Rapkin

Based in Fort Lauderdale, FL, Eric Rapkin serves as chair of Akerman LLP’s Real Estate Practice Group, one of the nation’s top-ranked real estate legal teams representing developers, investors, and other real estate end users in complex transactions, development and redevelopment projects, public-private initiatives, loan origination and recoveries, and litigation matters across the United States and Latin America.

Known as a consummate dealmaker, Rapkin focuses his practice on sophisticated commercial real estate transactions, including the leasing, acquisition, disposition, and financing of office towers, shopping centers, industrial properties, hotels, and medical office buildings for top developers, institutional investors, and investment funds.

Recognized by Chambers USA as “a very knowledgeable resource on leasing transactions,” while also noting that “he approaches things from a business perspective,” Rapkin has finalized deals for many millions of square feet of office, retail, industrial and mixed-use projects.

Colleagues say he’s well versed in build-to-suit projects, with a detailed knowledge of the complex construction provisions that are central to these deals. Among the BTS transactions he has represented are Office Depot’s 625,000-square-foot world headquarters and Bacardi USA’s 230,000-square-foot headquarters.

Rapkin is also experienced in office tower acquisitions and dispositions and major public-private partnership transactions, such as Dodgertown, the Los Angeles Dodgers’ spring training facility in Vero Beach, FL.

Rapkin has served in numerous leadership roles in the real estate sector, including the International Council of Shopping Centers and NAIOP Commercial Real Estate Development Association.

It’s for these reasons that we named Eric Rapkin to our inaugural grouping of Lawyers in Real Estate. These are real estate attorneys who have distinguished themselves in both their practice and the larger community.

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About Paul Bubny

Paul Bubny serves as Senior Content Director for Connect Commercial Real Estate, a role to which he brings 13-plus years’ experience covering the commercial real estate industry and 30-plus years in business-to-business journalism. In this capacity, he oversees daily operations while also reporting on both local/regional markets and national trends, covering individual transactions across all property types, as well as delving into broader subject matter. He produces 15-20 daily news stories per day and works with the Connect team and clients to develop longer-form content, ranging from Q&As to thought-leadership pieces. Prior to joining Connect, Paul was Managing Editor for both Real Estate Forum and GlobeSt.com at American Lawyer Media, where he oversaw operations at both publications while also producing daily news and feature-length articles. His tenure in B2B publishing stretches back into the print era, and he has served as Editor in Chief on four national trade publications. Since 1999, Paul has volunteered as the newsletter editor of passenger rail advocacy groups (one national, one local).

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