Jessica McGinnis

Jessica McGinnis represents developers, property owners, landlords, tenants, healthcare operators, restaurateurs, and investors in commercial real estate and business transactions. Her practice centers on commercial leasing, acquisitions and dispositions, and real estate development, with particular depth advising restaurant, hospitality, healthcare, retail, office, and mixed-use clients — and residential and commercial closings that bring those relationships full circle.

Jessica regularly advises on sophisticated leasing matters across four sectors where she has built specific expertise: restaurant and hospitality (national and international brands, ground leases, and multi-unit rollouts), healthcare (medical office buildings, clinics, and outpatient facilities), retail and mixed-use, and office. She represents both landlords and tenants, giving her a rare, dual-sided view of lease negotiation that clients on either side of the table value.

Because commercial real estate rarely stays confined to real estate law, Jessica works as a connector as much as a closer. She works closely with Lowndes colleagues across construction, land use and zoning, corporate and tax, labor and employment, and private wealth to give clients senior-level coverage on the issues that surface around a lease, a development, or a closing — from workforce and compliance questions at a growing restaurant group, to entity and succession planning for a family that holds real estate across multiple structures, to construction contract and defect exposure on a development project. Clients get one relationship and the full resources of the firm behind it.

Experience

Commercial & Restaurant/Hospitality Leasing

• Represents national and international restaurant brands in commercial leasing matters throughout the United States, including lease negotiations, amendments, renewals, co-tenancy issues, estoppels, SNDAs, lease terminations, and related agreements.
• Represented an international REIT in leasing matters for a portfolio of five Class A retail shopping centers (approximately 2.3 million square feet) and six Class A office projects (approximately 900,000 square feet), including leases, amendments, broker agreements, property management agreements, and related transactions.

Healthcare Leasing

• Advises medical office building owners, healthcare systems, and clinical operators on leasing, buildout, and site-selection matters for outpatient and clinical space.

Development & Acquisitions

• Represents developers, institutional owners, and businesses in the acquisition, disposition, financing, and development of commercial real estate projects throughout Florida.
• Represents residential developers in matters involving platting, lender financing, restrictive covenants, construction, and sales to end-user homeowners.
• Assisted in the planning and development of a 400-acre mixed-use master-planned community involving residential, retail, senior living, institutional, and environmental uses.

Institutional & Business Transactions

• Represents institutional clients in complex commercial real estate transactions involving purchases and sales, easements, licensing agreements, affinity agreements, and specialized property uses.

News

Community Activities

• Feeding Children Everywhere, Community Volunteer

Professional Certifications & Memberships

• Orange County Bar Association
  • Executive Council Board Member, 2023-2025
• Central Florida Association for Women Lawyers
  • President, 2015-2016
  • President Elect, 2014-2015
  • Program Director, 2012-2014
  • Treasurer, 2011-2012
  • Secretary, 2010-2011
• ICSC, Member
• Commercial Real Estate Women (CREW), Member