Vellandi has served as a real estate lawyer with two of California’s pre-eminent real estate law firms and is currently a solo practitioner. In private practice, he has represented large corporations, developers, landlords, real property purchasers, borrowers and secured lenders on a wide range of real estate and securities related transactions in various states. He has specific experience in land use, purchases and sales, project financing (including secured, unsecured, mezzanine , CMBS and credit enhancements for private activity bond transactions) and in the leasing and management of industrial buildings, shopping centers and office buildings.
Additionally, Vellandi serves as a lender required independent director or springing member for the bankruptcy remote ownership entities of various high value real estate holdings throughout the country, each with a minimum value of $30 million and up to $150 million (currently serving in this capacity for transactions totaling over $1 billion in market value).
Vellandi formerly served as in-house counsel with a real estate investment firm specializing in the management of various REITs, and offering of value-added investments and tenant-in-common products (the largest tenant-in-common investment sponsor in the country). He was responsible for overseeing all real estate related transactions in connection with the acquisition, disposition, financing and management of a portfolio of over $2 billion of commercial real estate throughout the country.
As in-house counsel, Vellandi was the point person for closing on the acquisition of over $1.2 billion of commercial office buildings, including 34 transactions in 13 states. He closed the $113 million acquisition of the Long Beach World Trade Center and a $274.5 million three-building portfolio acquisition in downtown San Diego, which was the largest real estate transaction in San Diego history. The San Diego portfolio consisted of the 30-story Emerald Plaza, 24-story Comerica Bank Building and the 22-story Golden Eagle Plaza and was structured with two separate lenders and two types of buying entities all closing on the same day. The Emerald Plaza piece of the portfolio was acquired on behalf of 33 tenants-in-common and was the 3rd largest tenant-in-common acquisition at the time.
With a B.A. from the University of California at Irvine, Vellandi earned his J.D. from UCLA School of Law. While attending law school, Vellandi earned the American Jurisprudence Awards for Torts and Property Law, and served as a teaching fellow to the legendary late Property Professor Jesse Dukeminier. Prior to entering law school, he served as an appointee of former California Governor Pete Wilson on the bipartisan commission responsible for administering President Clinton's AmeriCorps program. Vellandi recently served as a Governor Schwarzenegger appointee to the Orange County Fair Board. He is a member of the State Bar of California, is a California licensed real estate broker and serves in a leadership capacity for various charities and professional organizations. Vellandi also serves as an arbitrator of disputes for various Associations of Realtors.
