Overview
Gunster’s Hospitality & Clubs team is dedicated to meeting the legal, business and strategic needs of industry clients throughout Florida, across the nation, and on a global scale. Our practice includes nationally recognized attorneys who have represented a variety of clients in acquisitions and dispositions; large construction contracts; financing transactions; ultra-luxury, mixed-use hotel and hotel condominium projects (with residential, retail, office and resort components); private, semi-private and resort clubs, both in stand-alone and large-scale developments; as well as in negotiating numerous franchise, hotel operating and management agreements. Our firm delivers decades of experience in club and membership programs, with attorneys who have represented hundreds of private member clubs across multiple continents regarding club formation and ongoing governance and development.
Our team is experienced in planning, structuring and documenting significant large-scale hotel, resort and community projects. Our attorneys assist developers, investors, management companies, owners and lenders of luxury, mixed-use hotel and large-scale, mixed-use projects throughout Florida, North America, the Caribbean and Latin America. Our capabilities span a variety of hospitality related work such as financing; project structuring; negotiation of franchise, management and operating agreements; environmental law; employment law; immigration; and tax counsel. Our firm is adept at working as a team with local counsel and professionals in an effort to deliver optimal results for our clients.
Gunster is experienced in representing all types of clubs and membership organizations and programs. Our clients include private member-owned clubs, resort-owner clubs, developer-run clubs and the management companies who operate such clubs on their behalf. A selection of our clients represent some of the largest and most exclusive clubs in the industry, and for whom we provide legal counsel pertaining to initial and ongoing structuring, governance and day-to-day operational needs that range from bylaw amendments and enforcement, to dispute resolution and member discipline, to employment law matters and improvement initiatives that address the increasing demand for club participation.
Because every club is different, our team seeks to understand the unique dynamics and culture within the legal framework in which each distinct club operates. Our personalized approach to problem-solving has resulted in the representation of some clubs for more than three decades. Our extensive skill in serving clubs allows us not only to analyze the legalities of specific club decisions, such as assessments and positioning the club for economical shifts, but also can result in helping our clients determine what will work specifically for their members in terms of developing interpersonal connections and analyzing membership categories that incorporate new social trends in hospitality —skills that require emotional intelligence and a great deal of sensitivity.
