Joseph DiRago is a trusted counselor to clients in a variety of real estate, energy and utility transactions. His breadth of experience spans traditional real estate transactions, oil and gas, municipal law, utility law, finance and bankruptcy law.

Real Estate

Joe represents clients in real estate matters, focusing on lease negotiations, acquisitions of new land and buildings for business expansion or relocation, dispositions of real property, easements, land use and zoning, and real estate financings.

Joe has counseled clients on:

• The sale of an office park consisting of seven buildings, 1.1 million square feet of office space and 66 developable acres
• Structuring and negotiating the purchase of a multi-family property with 82 apartments that contained potential environmental contamination and demolition issues
• Amending the Zoning Code for the City and County of Denver to permit additional uses of setbacks for utilities
• Negotiating and drafting commercial lease agreements on behalf of landlords and tenants for office, warehouse, restaurant, retail and laboratory space
• Local governmental approvals for land use in Boulder, Weld and Adams Counties, Colorado
• Acquisition of land and property rights for the development of electric substations and natural gas regulator stations, including transmission line easements, drainage easements, canal and pipeline easements, fiber optic easements and related access easements
• Financings of apartment, retail, and industrial buildings on behalf of lenders and borrowers, including borrower opinion letters

Energy

Joe represents electric and gas utilities and oil and gas companies on real estate transactions, government permitting and municipal law issues. Joe’s experience includes:

• Counseling a client through the acquisition of property rights for a 600-megawatt wind generating project, the largest in Colorado
• Negotiating Utility Relocation Agreements (URA) with government agencies for major transportation and infrastructure development projects
• Drafting ditch crossing agreements, utility crossing agreements and shared use agreements between utility companies
• Drafting, negotiating and obtaining municipal approval of utility Franchise Agreements