Shawna Tunnell

• Represented Brookfield Real Estate Income Trust Inc. in its follow-on public offering to raise up to $7.5 billion.
• Represented Starwood Real Estate Income Trust Inc. in its second follow-on public offering to raise up to $18 billion.
• Represented J.P. Morgan Real Estate Income Trust, Inc. in its formation and the registration of its $5 billion initial public offering.
• Represented FS Credit Real Estate Income Trust Inc. in its second follow-on public offering to raise up to $2.75 billion.
• Represented Nuveen Global Cities REIT Inc. in its follow-on public offering to raise up to $5 billion.
• Represented JLL Income Property Trust Inc. in its second follow-on public offering to raise up to $3 billion.
• Represented RREEF Property Trust Inc. in its third follow-on public offering to raise up to $3 billion.
• Represented Indiana-based public logistics REIT Duke Realty Corporation in numerous stock and notes offerings totalling more than $5 billion and several tender offers totalling $825 million, and most recently provided REIT tax representation with respect to its $26 billion acquisition by Prologis, a San Francisco-based logistics real estate company, the largest REIT privatization transaction of 2022.
• Represented Wheeler Real Estate Investment Trust, Inc., a public REIT, in its $291 million acquisition of Cedar Realty Trust, Inc.
• Represented NitNeil Partners in the sale of a portfolio of 22 self-storage facilities to Life Storage, Inc., a public REIT, for $228 million in cash and units of Life Storage’s operating partnership, and in the subsequent merger of Life Storage with Extra Space Storage Inc.
• Represented Palatine Capital Partners in the formation of $700 million+ in real estate investment funds.

Shawna R. Tunnell is a partner in Alston & Bird’s Federal & International Tax Group. As co-leader of the REITs and Real Estate Funds tax practice, she advises real estate investment entities and their financial advisors on the tax issues relevant to public and private REIT and fund formations, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, and going-private transactions across virtually
every asset class, including office, industrial, retail, multifamily, hospitality, medical, timber, mortgage, and specialty finance. Her clients rely on her for counsel on private financing arrangements and capital markets offerings of debt and equity securities, including best efforts public offerings for non-listed REITs.

Shawna also negotiates with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to obtain private letter rulings and other guidance to ensure federal tax compliance for her clients. She enjoys assisting institutional and high net worth investors with solving tax structuring issues that arise in connection with their investments. In addition to clients in the real estate space, Shawna’s clients include companies in the media and entertainment, technology and telecom, and energy sectors.

Bar Admissions

• District of Columbia
• New York
• Connecticut

Education

• New York University (J.D., 1991)
• New York University (LL.M., 1994)
• University of Kansas (B.A., 1988)

Memberships