Overview
Steve Berkman is a partner in the Real Estate practice of the Paul Hastings San Francisco office. His practice primarily consists of representing institutional owners and corporate users of various types of real estate assets, both nationally and internationally. Mr. Berkman has extensive experience representing major corporate users of real estate, advising on headquarters and other facilities acquisitions and leasing (including some of the largest headquarters transactions in the Bay Area), sale/leaseback transactions, ground leases, and disposition of excess property. He also spends significant time representing buyers and sellers of major office, retail, apartment, industrial, gaming, and hospitality projects, whether in single asset or portfolio transactions.
As part of his real estate practice, Mr. Berkman has developed a nationally recognized practice representing users, operators, and private equity investors with respect to the development, leasing, and operation of data centers.
Recognitions
- Chambers USA, Northern California Real Estate (2016-2018, 2021-2023)
Education
- University of California at Los Angeles School of Law, J.D., 1992
- University of California Berkeley, B.S. (with honors), 1987
Representations
Representative clients include Facebook, salesforce.com, LinkedIn, Stripe, Okta, Palantir, Rockwood Capital, and BioMarin Pharmaceuticals
Recent Headquarters and Leasing Transactions:
- Salesforce.com in the leasing in San Francisco of Salesforce Tower (approximately 881,000 square feet), 445,000 square feet at 350 Mission, 500,000 square feet at 50 Fremont, 230,000 square feet at One Rincon and the project in San Francisco known as Parcel F
- Facebook in the leasing of portions of 3 buildings within Hudson Yards in New York City, which was the largest office lease transaction in Manhattan in 2019
- Facebook in the acquisition of its Menlo Park campus, including subsequent land acquisitions and leases of multiple adjacent sites
- Facebook in the lease of 435,000 square feet at 181 Fremont, San Francisco and 756,000 feet at Park Tower, San Francisco
- LinkedIn in the swap with Google of various land and leases comprising the LinkedIn and Google headquarters in Mountain View and Sunnyvale
- LinkedIn in the lease of 450,000 square feet at 222 Second Street, San Francisco
- Stripe in the lease of 2 buildings within the Oyster Point development in South San Francisco
- Okta in its headquarters lease at 100 First, San Francisco
- LinkedIn in the lease of 456,000 square feet at San Antonio Center in Mountain View and the subsequent assignment of the lease to WeWork
- Salesforce.com in numerous U.S. and international office leases, including Salesforce Tower Chicago, Salesforce Tower New York, Salesforce Tower Indianapolis and Salesforce Tower Atlanta
- Salesforce.com in the 25 year naming rights agreement with Transbay Joint Powers Authority for the Salesforce Transit Center in San Francisco
Recent Data Center Transactions:
- Facebook with respect to various U.S. and international data center developments, including in Singapore, New Mexico, Nebraska, Oregon, North Carolina, Texas and Alabama
- Salesforce.com with respect to U.S. and international data center locations
- TierPoint in the acquisition of CoSentry, Windstream and other data center companies
Involvement
- Member of the State Bar of California