Each year, Midwest Real Estate News inducts a new class into its Commercial Real Estate Hall of Fame. This year is no exception. Today, we look at the busy career of one of our new inductees, Todd LaSala, partner with law firm Stinson in Kansas City, Missouri.
As chairman of the Real Estate and Public Finance practice division at Kansas City-based law firm Stinson, Todd LaSala is known for representing municipalities and developers in the highest-profile development and redevelopment projects in the Kansas City area and beyond.
He’s also earned a reputation as an expert in the use of public incentives and other financing to make large-scale development projects happen.
“I love making deals,” LaSala said. “I like complicated and challenging deals best of all. The ones that require creativity, tenacity and have multiple parts that all need to come together to make the deal work are the most fun.”
How important is LaSala’s expertise to local government? This legal veteran, with more than 24 years in the business, has represented the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas, in all its economic development projects, including its development of Village West, the retail and entertainment district adjacent to the Kansas Speedway.
LaSala helped negotiate and close transactions to bring Cabela’s and Nebraska Furniture Mart to Kansas City, and he helped the Unified Government in its development of the Legends shopping center, a baseball stadium for the Kansas City T-Bones minor-league franchise and other projects at Village West.
LaSala represented, too, the Unified Government in the development of a new $165 million Major League Soccer stadium for the Sporting Kansas City franchise and the development of the National Training Center in Kansas City, Kansas, a $62 million soccer coaching and training village that provides seasonal training facilities to the U.S. men’s and women’s national soccer teams, other Olympic sporting activities and a complex for children of all ages and skill levels.
And that’s only a portion of LaSala’s work on behalf of the Kansas City area. He also served as lead counsel to the Unified Government and the Board of Public Utilities in their efforts to be selected by Google to become the first city in the United States to have “Google Fiber” – a fiber network providing internet connections of 1 gigabit per second to businesses, schools and other locations.
LaSala has also worked on most of the public-private partnership development projects in the City of Overland Park, Kansas. He was the firm’s lead attorney representing the City in the development of retail projects, the development of mixed-use projects and the development of several multi-family projects in downtown Overland Park.
“I think I’ve been able to be successful in the real estate industry because I’ve got genuine enthusiasm and almost unlimited energy to devote to my deals,” LaSala said. “I’ll work as hard as it takes and usually find a way to make it fun for those working on a deal with me, even those sitting on the other side of the table. I think that contributes to my track record of pretty big deals that almost always get over the finish line.”
Currently, LaSala is working on Kansas City’s largest mixed-use project, Bluhawk, in Overland Park, which includes a planned 3,500-seat arena; an indoor multi-sport athletic complex; more than 600,000 square feet of retail, hotel and commercial space; and office and multifamily housing.
LaSala was selected to membership in the American College of Real Estate Lawyers in 2014. He is listed in the 2006-present editions of Chambers USA Guide: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business for Real Estate and is a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Accredited Professional recognized by the U.S. Green Building Council.
When he’s not closing deals, LaSala enjoys his huge collection of vinyl records and his back porch, which he describes as “a little slice of heaven.”
