John Hunter is a pure economic development attorney, as his practice is entirely focused on proactively assisting and counseling corporate clients during all phases of the site-selection process when those clients are looking to expand, consolidate, or relocate some form of company operation. Whether the client project at hand entails a headquarters or back-office need, an R&D facility, a distribution center and/or new manufacturing facility, or even a data-center co-lo or server farm locational need, John has over a 20-year track record of successfully advising clients and negotiating incentive packages of varying needs and sizes in each of these facility categories throughout the Southeast United States and, more particularly, throughout the Carolinas.

Having previously served as the director of economic development for the two-state, 16-county Charlotte Regional Partnership, John is able to bring a unique perspective and understanding as well as a long-established and loyal network of public and private support to his clients project’s needs while deftly assisting those clients navigate the site-selection process. John has negotiated and obtained some of the largest, most successful state and local incentive packages ever awarded in the Carolinas on behalf of both domestic and international clients such as Google, First Quality Tissue, Samsung, SPX, Rooms-To-Go, CompuCom, Mitsubishi Nuclear, and CTL Packaging. He and his team also regularly counsel and assist clients on issues involving real estate, environmental site assessment, regulatory and permitting, public finance, as well as state and local tax and general corporate matters.

Professional Activities

  • North Carolina Bar Association
  • Mecklenburg County Bar Association
  • NCBA International Law Council
  • North Carolina Economic Developers Association, former Board Member and current Member
  • South Carolina Economic Developers Association, Member
  • Charlotte Regional Partnership, Board Member

Experience

Any result the lawyer or law firm may have achieved on behalf of clients in other matters does not necessarily indicate similar results can be obtained for other clients.

  • Represented and counseled three major internet search-engine related corporate clients during the site-selection and eventual site-location of multiple, billion dollar plus data-center server farm projects in the Carolinas.
  • Lead state and local incentives counsel for numerous client headquarters expansion and/or relocation projects including CompuCom, SPX, Movement Mortgage, The Lash Group, Red Ventures, Rack-Room-Shoes, Mergent, and Chiquita Brands International, Inc.
  • Primary outside and site selection counsel to international manufacturing clients including CTL Packaging (Spanish), Lanxess and Continental Tire (German), Reliance Industries (Indian), Nitta Gelatin, Sony Chemical, and Livedo (Japanese), Iljin (Korean), and Legrande (French) during successful plant locations throughout the Southeast United States.
  • Advised/counseled a number of national commercial real estate developers with build-to-suit and/or speculative development capital investment projects, obtaining significant incentives and site infrastructure assistance on their behalf from relevant state and local governmental entities as well as from relevant site utility providers.