Jonathan L MechanicJonathan L. Mechanic is chairman of Fried Frank's Real Estate Department. Prior to joining Fried Frank as a partner, he was general counsel and a managing director of HRO International, a real estate development organization responsible for developin more than 2.5 million square feet of office space in Manhattan.
Mr. Mechanic routinely counsels developers, owners, investors, REITs, and lenders in all aspects of commercial real estate transactions. Notably, he represents JP Morgan in connection with its redevelopment of 270 Park Avenue into a new 2.5-million-squarefoot headquarters building; Maefield Development in its approximately US$1.6 billion acquisition of 20 Times Square (aka 701 Seventh Avenue); and CWCapital Asset Management in its sale of Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village to Blackstone Group and Ivanhoé Cambridge. He also represents landlords and tenants in commercial leasing and ground lease transactions, including his recent representations of 21st Century Fox and News Corp. on their headquarters leases at 1211 Avenue of the Americas; Citigroup in its long-term lease of its global headquarters at 388-390 Greenwich Street and the exercise of its option to purchase the building; Coach in the sale-leaseback of its global headquarters at 10 Hudson Yards; Ernst & Young in its more than 600,000-square-foot lease for its new headquarters at One Manhattan West; Shiseido in its 225,000-squarefoot lease at 390 Madison Avenue for its U.S. headquarters; and JP Morgan in its 437,000-square-foot lease at 390 Madison Avenue.
Mr. Mechanic has taught the real estate transactions course at Harvard Law School for more than ten years. He also lectures regularly for NYU Law School, the Real Estate Board of New York, and the Practising Law Institute and is a coauthor of The Commercial Office Lease Handbook, published by the American Bar Association.
Mr. Mechanic was awarded the 2016 Distinguished Alumnus Award from New York University and the 2016 Chambers USA Outstanding Contribution to the Legal Profession Award. For a decade, Mr. Mechanic has been recognized by Chambers USA as a "Star Individual" in real estate. He is consistently included on Commercial Observer's "Power 100" list of the most powerful people in New York real estate and was the only practicing attorney to make the list in 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018. In 2019, Mr. Mechanic was joined by land use partner Melanie Meyers as the only two practicing attorneys on the list, and in 2020 he was one of three practicing attorneys recognized. In 2021 and 2022, Mr. Mechanic was recognized by City & State New York in its "Real Estate Power 100" list and its "Law Power 100" list. In addition, he was named "MVP Lawyer of the Year" by Law360 in 2019, 2013, and 2011. Fried Frank's Real Estate Department has been recognized as Law360's Real Estate Group of the Year, was recognized by Chambers USA as the 2019 Real Estate Law Firm of the Year, and was awarded the 2018 Real Estate Client Service Award and the 2009 Award for Excellence in Real Estate. Read More Read Less