Chad A. Key

BIOGRAPHY

Chad A. Key’s legal experience includes all aspects of real estate, with an emphasis on acquisitions and dispositions of real property, development of real property, financing, and commercial leasing transactions. He represents a variety of publicly traded and privately held corporate clients, real estate funds, and individuals in all types of complex real estate matters, including industrial, office, hotel, retail, ranch land, and multi-family projects. Mr. Key also has experience in the areas of oil and gas, public finance and economic development agreements.

Mr. Key currently serves on the Executive Committee and co-chair’s Kelly Hart’s Real Estate Practice Group.

EXPERIENCE AND HIGHLIGHTS

• Primary outside real estate counsel for over a decade representing the owner and developer of a 17,000+ acre master-planned international trade and logistics center and mixed-use development with regard to development, leases and sales to numerous Fortune 500 companies for industrial, office, retail and other projects
• Represented developer in the 2016 sale and development of Facebook Data Center in Fort Worth, Texas
• Represented developer in the development, lease, and later sale of the Amazon distribution center in Haslet, Texas
• Represents developer in connection with 240 acre Frisco Station development surrounding the new Dallas Cowboys headquarters in Frisco, Texas
• Represented developer in transactions with UPS, Deloitte, Wal-Mart, Cinemark, GE Manufacturing, 7-Eleven, Cisco, Bentall Kennedy, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Galderma, Lifetime Fitness, Ryder, Bell Helicopter, HEB, Aldi, CVS, JB Hunt, RaceTrac, QuikTrip, Texas Health Resources, Cook Children’s Hospital, Tarrant County College, JC Penney, Murphy USA, JP Morgan and Prudential
• Represented real estate fund in 2017 acquisition of two uptown Dallas office buildings
• Led team that represented a major independent energy company in the systematic acquisition of over $400 million in real estate assets in the Barnett, Haynesville, Eagle Ford and other shale natural gas fields, consisting of over 300 separate transactions and including hotels, shopping centers, office buildings, apartment complexes and raw land
• Led team that represented a major independent energy company in the acquisition of what is believed to be the largest assemblage of fee-owned surface natural gas drilling sites in the United States
• Led team that represented a major independent energy company in a first-of-its-kind portfolio sale-leaseback transaction consisting of over $100 million of natural gas drilling sites located in the Barnett Shale natural gas field
• Represented client in the acquisition and later sale of the Ashton Hotel in downtown Fort Worth, Texas
• Represented various clients in the acquisition and disposition of various ranch properties throughout Texas
• Represented owners and developers in the acquisition, development and sale of office buildings, hotels, mixed use developments, industrial parks and multi-family developments

AFFILIATIONS

• American Bar Association
• Greater Fort Worth Real Estate Council
• Texas Bar Foundation, Fellow
• Tarrant County Bar Association
• State Bar of Texas
  • Real Estate, Probate and Trust Law Section
  • Oil, Gas, and Energy Resources Law Section

HONORS

• Best Lawyers in America®, U.S. News & World Report, 2010-2025
  • Real Estate Law
• Texas Super Lawyers, Thomson Reuters, 2014-2024
  • Real Estate Law
• Top Attorney, 360 West magazine, 2017-2023
  • Real Estate Law
• Top Attorney, Fort Worth Magazine, 2007-2024
  • Real Estate Law
• Texas Super Lawyers Rising Star, Thomson Reuters, 2005-2014
  • Real Estate Law
• 40 Under 40 honoree, Fort Worth Business Press, 2010

EDUCATION

• Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law, J.D., cum laude, 2001
  • SMU Law Review Association, Member and Articles Editor, 1999-2001
  • Order of the Coif
  • Phi Delta Phi
• Texas Tech University, B.S., summa cum laude, 1998

ADMISSIONS

• State Bar of Texas