Shanellah Verna Harris

Shanellah is a member of Taft’s Real Estate and Hospitality teams. Her practice focuses on a diverse array of financing, acquisition, disposition, and management projects on behalf of real estate owners and operators, developers, lenders, investors, and local university clients across the country and internationally. Her representative experience spans multiple real estate sectors, including hospitality, multifamily, office, and industrial asset classes.

Prior to joining the firm, Shanellah practiced at an Am Law 100 firm, facilitating real estate development transactions involving tax-exempt bonds, low-income housing tax credit, and federal, state, and local government financing on behalf of mortgage lenders, for-profit and non-profit developers, and public housing authorities nationwide.

• Represented a global asset manager on the $835 million disposition of the Diplomat Beach Resort in Hollywood, Florida. This deal was the largest sale of any hospitality asset in the United States since March 2020 and was named the 2023 Single Asset Transaction of the Year for deals over $25 million by the Americas Lodging Investment Summit.
• Represented a global asset manager in connection with multiple refinancings and the 2025 disposition of the PGA National Resort.
• Represented a global asset manager and investor in connection with its negotiation of a new brand management agreement and financing of a luxury hotel in Vancouver, Canada.
• Represented a university client in multiple acquisitions, including a large mixed-use development and office conversion in Washington, DC.
• Represented a global asset manager in connection with its $300 million cross-collateralized refinancing of three full-service hotels in Georgia, Washington, D.C., and California.
• Represented a luxury resort owner in connection with its disposition of several resort properties in the Caribbean and Mexico.
• Represented a global asset manager in its acquisition of various industrial property portfolios in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions.
• Represented a leading international asset manager in its $250 million cross-collateralized CMBS refinancing of two resort properties in the Southeast.
• Represented an investment advisor in connection with the property transfer and franchise agreement conversion for a Hilton property in Washington, D.C.
• Represented a national lender in $20 million permanent loan refinancing of multifamily apartment complex in Washington, D.C.