Cristina Coronado

Cristina Coronado concentrates her practice on complex real estate development, acquisition and disposition of commercial properties, commercial leasing, and zoning and land use. Cristina represents owners and developers of all property types. She has extensive experience with acquisitions and dispositions, including retail, industrial, multifamily, resort, solar, and mining projects. She frequently handles office, retail, and industrial leasing, on both the landlord and the tenant side.

In her land use and development work, she has assisted retail, resort, residential treatment, office, residential, and solar developers in obtaining all forms of zoning relief and subdivision and land development approvals. She also helps clients obtain business licenses, including beer permits. Her clients have included national and local retailers, a shopping center owner in the redevelopment of an old mall to a new lifestyle center that includes a large residential component, and the developer of the first large-scale photovoltaic solar project in Utah. Cristina also has extensive experience in mergers and acquisitions of companies with extensive real estate holdings.

Representative Matters

• Cristina assists clients with obtaining master plan amendments, rezones, nonconforming use and noncomplying structure determinations, development agreements, and subdivision approvals, as well as development approvals, including conditional use permits, site plan approvals, sign permits, and building permits. She also helps clients obtain alcohol licenses. As part of such work, Cristina represents clients before local bodies, including city and county councils, planning commissions, design review boards, and boards of appeal, as well as community councils.
• Reviews the applicable leases and drafted the necessary consents from and notices to the landlord for a data center provider in its sale to another data provider
• Represents ski resort owners in transactions related to the purchase and sale of buildings, development parcels, lots, and condominiums
• Represents owners and sellers of office and retail buildings and raw land
• Represents retailer as tenant when it leases, and as buyer when it purchases, subdivided or raw land for the development of a store
• Represents tenants in leases of office and retail space
• Prepares and negotiates industrial warehouse leases for a national developer
• Prepares and negotiates office building leases for institutional owners and investors
• Assists the owner of property in the legal structuring of a mixed-use project involving the redevelopment of a former mall, including master covenants and easements with one or more condominium regimes
• Represented national lender in connection with term, bridge, and mezzanine loans
• Assists owners and tenants when governmental authorities exercise eminent domain or taking rights
• Represents solar project developers in connection with purchase, lease, and development of solar projects
• Drafted and negotiated the purchase and sale agreements and related joint venture documents for Australian purchasers of coal and other mineral properties in Utah, including those that were the subject of bankruptcy
• Assists borrowers in connection with financing matters

Pro Bono Matters

• Recently co-led a team working with Appleseed public interest justice network to draft an issue brief concerning legal rights and challenges to education and benefits for homeless youth; for her significant pro bono service, she received Ballard Spahr’s 2012 Pro Bono Award
• Represented a nonprofit day care center in the purchase of its building
• Represented Hawkwatch International in obtaining land use approvals to build mews for hawks

Professional Activities

International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC)

NAIOP

Recognition & Accomplishments

Chambers USA, real estate law (Utah), 2017-2020

The Best Lawyers in America, real estate law, 2015-2021

Selected as a member of Utah Business magazine's Utah Legal Elite for real estate, 2010, 2013, 2014, and 2018

Named to Utah Business magazine's "30 Women to Watch" List for 2017

Named a "Rising Star" at the Georgetown University Advanced Commercial Leasing Institute Conference

Recipient, Ballard Spahr's 2012 Pro Bono Award, for significant pro bono service 

Speaking Engagements

Speaker, "Developer/Tenant Flashpoints in Redevelopments of Malls and Shopping Centers," International Council of Shopping Centers, 2015 U.S. Shopping Center Law Conference, Orlando, October 31, 2015

Speaker, "Due Diligence Checklist for Developing a Commercial Project in Utah," Utah Association of Appraisers and CCIM Institute, RealCON Utah 2015, Salt Lake City, September 2015

Speaker, "Real Estate Purchase and Sales Transactions: Negotiating the Documents," National Association for Industrial and Office Parks, 2015 NAIOP Utah CORE CE Course, August 20, 2015

Speaker, "Solar Projects," Utah State Bar Real Property Section, CLE Luncheon, April 8, 2015

Speaker, "Lost in the Supermarket: Current Issues in Grocery-Anchored Centers," International Council of Shopping Centers, 44th Annual ICSC Law Conference, Orlando, October 24, 2014

Speaker, "Roundtables: Securing and Maintaining Zoning and Land Use Entitlements, Legal Considerations for Grocery Store Users, and Lessons Learned from Litigation of Lease Provisions," 2013 U.S. Shopping Center Law Conference, San Diego, October 16, 2013

Speaker, "Work Letters after the Great Recession," International Council of Shopping Centers, 2012 U.S. Shopping Center Law Conference, Orlando, October 24, 2012

Board Memberships

Commercial Real Estate Women Network, Utah Chapter (CREW Utah)
Board Member, 2010-present; President, 2014

Columbia Law School (J.D. 2001)

University of Notre Dame (B.A. 1997)

New York

Utah