Skip to Content
Catherine Morgen

Catherine E. Morgen

Partner
Phone: 404.504.7745
Fax: 404.365.9532
cmorgen@mmmlaw.com
Join my LinkedIn network
vCard

Catherine E. Morgen is a Partner in Morris, Manning & Martin, LLP's Commercial Real Estate Development and Finance and Hospitality Practices.  Catherine concentrates her practice on the representation of real estate clients, with an emphasis on the hospitality industry. Catherine has significant experience representing developers, owners, and managers of hotel properties in effecting acquisitions, dispositions, and mergers, developing their properties, negotiating hotel management agreements, and franchise agreements, arranging construction and permanent financing, and leasing.  Catherine regularly works with all of the major hotel brands and third-party operators for all hotel asset classes.

Catherine also represents institutional real estate lenders, borrowers, and investors, including financial institutions, REITs, and pension fund advisors.  She specializes in a wide variety of financing transactions including permanent and construction financing, multi-state collateral pools for revolving credit facilities, and mortgage loan servicing. 

Catherine is on the advisory counsel of the MMM LGBTQ practice group, as well as the firm's MMMPact committee, as chair of MMM's Women’s Initiative.

In addition, Catherine has written and spoken on a variety of matters including hotel ownership, management and development, hospitality lending, CFIUS in hospitality transactions, distressed hotel matters, and women's leadership issues.  Chambers USA ranks both Catherine and MMM’s Hospitality practice as among the top in the country for Leisure & Hospitality law.

Representative Experience

  • Represented client in the acquisition, financing, rebranding and extensive renovation of historic hotels and resorts, including the oceanfront Cliff House Maine located on 70 acres atop Bald Head Cliff in Ogunquit, Maine, The Adolphus, a 100-plus-year-old iconic downtown Dallas hotel, and the Seelbach Hilton, a well-known historic hotel in Memphis that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
  • Represented hotel owner in $142 million acquisition and related financing of a 5-hotel, 1,396-room portfolio of Marriott branded select-service and extended stay hotels located in Florida, Georgia and New Jersey from a large public REIT, including the assumption of three existing management agreements with Marriott.
  • Represented client in its joint venture with a large institutional investment fund to acquire a 282-room Marriott in Atlanta, Georgia, and a 226-room Hilton Suites in Phoenix, Arizona. In addition, MMM represented the joint venture in obtaining financing for the acquisition and the planned major renovation program for each hotel to upgrade property exteriors, public space, back-of-house areas and guest rooms.
  • Represented international hotel owner/manager in $300 million sale of a majority partnership interest with retention of long-term management rights for luxury hotels in Chicago, IL and Miami, FL and $450 million portfolio sale of 13 hotel properties in the U.S., Canada and Caribbean; negotiation of associated long-term management agreements.

Accolades

  • Selected, Best Lawyers, Real Estate Law, 2023 - 2024
  • Selected, Globe Street, Women of Influence2022
  • Selected, Chambers USA, Leisure & Hospitality, 2021 - 2023

Membership

  • Former Board Member, Castell Project
  • Member, State Bar of Georgia (Real Property Section)
  • Member, Atlanta Bar Association 
  • Board Member, Atlanta Hospitality Alliance (AHA)

 

MMMPact in the Community

Chair, Women's Initiative, MMMPact Steering Committee

The Latest from Catherine Morgen