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About Silvana

Silvana has 29 years of commercial real estate experience. She has worked on a wide variety of transactions, with an emphasis on real estate financings, joint ventures, acquisitions and dispositions of commercial real estate properties, receivership sales, security enforcement and restructurings.

Silvana is committed to providing clients with timely, high-quality service and strives to provide practical, effective advice to help achieve the client's goal.

Silvana is a member of the Blakes Executive Committee.

Select Experience

Significant transactions that highlight Silvana's practice include advising:

  • A major Canadian pension fund manager on its acquisition of the Downsview Airport property in Toronto, totalling approximately 370 acres, from Bombardier Inc.

  • JCF Capital ULC in connection with its acquisition, by way of successful credit bid, of the former Trump Tower, Toronto, a mixed hotel/residential condominium, and the sale of the hotel portion to InnVest Hotels

  • WestLB AG and Alvarez & Marsal, court-appointed receiver, in connection with the disposition of a luxury condominium hotel and conference centre on Lake Rosseau, Ontario

  • Sun Life Assurance Company in its C$225-million financings, including the first-mortgage financing of Guelph mental-health care facility, the first mortgage acquisition financing of seven nursing homes out of receivership and the first mortgage financing of four retail power centres

  • Public Sector Pension Investment Board in a number of acquisitions, joint ventures and financings of office properties in Ontario

  • A foreign investor in the disposition of its joint venture interest in Hazelton Lanes Shopping Centre in the Yorkville district of Toronto, Ontario

  • CDPQ Mortgage Corporation's C$405-million financing of five Westin hotels

  • A foreign investor in the acquisition of joint venture interests in office/retail properties in Ontario and Quebec

  • Legacy Hotel REIT's C$380-million financings of eight of its hotel properties

  • Aareal Bank in its C$352-million financings, including acquisition financing of Four Seasons Hotel, Toronto; financing of Airway Centre office complex, Mississauga; acquisition and renovation financing of eight hotel properties in Ontario, Manitoba and Quebec; and acquisition financing of Holiday Inn on King, Toronto

Awards & Recognition

Silvana is recognized as a leading lawyer in the following publications:

  • The Best Lawyers in Canada – 2019–2025 (Real Estate Law; awarded Lawyer of the Year for Toronto in 2022)

  • The Legal 500 Canada (2023–2024: Real Estate Law; 2015, 2017–2022: Real Estate and Construction)

  • Chambers Canada: Canada's Leading Lawyers for Business – 2017–2024 (Real Estate)

  • The Canadian Legal Lexpert Directory (2018–2022, 2024: Most Frequently Recommended – Property Development; 2023: Property Development)

  • The Lexpert/American Lawyer Guide to the Leading 500 Lawyers in Canada 2023 (Property Development)

  • Who's Who Legal: Global – 2021, 2023 (Hospitality, Real Estate)

  • Who's Who Legal: Canada – 2020–2023 (Real Estate)

  • Euromoney’s Women in Business Law Expert Guide 2022 (Real Estate)

  • The Lexpert/American Lawyer Guide to the Leading 500 Lawyers in Canada – 2018, 2021–2022 (Most Frequently Recommended – Property Development)

  • Who's Who Legal: Real Estate 2021

  • Who's Who Legal: Hospitality 2021

Professional Activities

Silvana has written numerous articles on real estate matters, including loans to joint ventures, due diligence in real estate financings and tendering in an electronic registration environment. She has spoken at several conferences held by the Law Society of Ontario, the Canadian Institute, Federated Press and the Ontario Bar Association, as well as on various real estate matters at student and associate training seminars.

Silvana is a member of the American College of Mortgage Attorneys.

Education

Admitted to the Ontario Bar – 1991
LLB, Osgoode Hall of Law School – 1989
BA (Hon.), University of Toronto – 1986

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