Valerie Kelly

A real estate partner in Fried Frank’s DC office, Valerie has played an integral role in the practice’s success by leading transactions and effectively tackling complex issues for prominent commercial real estate investors and developers, tenants, and financial institutions. She has been instrumental in negotiating a broad range of real estate transactions, including commercial leases and headquarters relocations, as well as acquisitions and dispositions.

Kelly has made a significant impact on the DC area. She represented an affiliate of Carr Properties, as landlord, in a 700,000-square-foot lease of a building for Fannie Mae’s headquarters, replacing The Washington Post’s current headquarters. The lease is the second largest non-government lease ever in DC.

Selected Representative Transactions

• Broadcast Music, Inc. in connection with its lease at 9420 Wilshire Boulevard, known as the Rolex Building, for its new Los Angeles headquarters.
• A joint venture of Rockwood Capital and Midtown Equities in connection with its 94,000-square-foot lease to Fiserv Solutions, LLC at One Broadway in the Financial District of New York City.
• Vericast, a subsidiary of MacAndrews & Forbes, in connection with the $38 million sale-leaseback of four industrial properties totaling more than 640,000 square feet space.
• RXR Realty in connection with various COVID-19 related lease amendments for their properties in NYC.

In addition to her work on behalf of her clients, Kelly partners with non-profit organizations including the Natural Resources Defense Council, New Leaders and Sanctuary for Families.

She is also actively involved in supporting women in the real estate and legal communities. She serves as co-leader of Fried Frank’s Women’s Forum.

These are some of the reasons that we named Kelly to our Washington, DC grouping of Lawyers in Real Estate. These are real estate attorneys who have distinguished themselves in both their practice and the larger community.