Timothy Franzen

Tim Franzen brings a perspective to hospitality real estate law that is genuinely rare: nearly 30 years of experience as one of its principal sponsor-side practitioners. Before joining Ginsberg Jacobs as a Partner and Chair of the firm’s Hospitality Real Estate Practice, Tim served as a developer, owner, operator, brand builder, capital markets participant, and c-suite executive across numerous commercial real estate asset classes, including hospitality real estate — giving him an instinctive understanding of what clients are actually trying to accomplish beyond the single transaction at hand.

Tim is perhaps best known for his central role in creating and growing Graduate Hotels, a collection of boutique hotels in university-anchored markets, from business plan to a 35-property national portfolio, which was ultimately acquired by Hilton in 2024. As President of Graduate Hotels and a Principal at AJ Capital Partners, he led a team of more than 60 multidisciplinary professionals, oversaw the acquisition of 31 hotels or land sites across the country in less than six years. Over the course of his principal-side career, Tim has been involved in the acquisition, repositioning or development of more than 40 hotels with a total value of over $2 billion.

Throughout his career as a principal, Tim also served in de facto general counsel roles that kept his legal skills sharp and directly applied to complex, high-stakes hospitality and commercial real estate transactions. At The Harp Group — a Chicago-based hotel owner and developer where Tim served as Principal and Executive Vice President — he personally led all legal work associated with the acquisition of eight hotels totaling over $390 million in value, negotiating purchase agreements, loan documents, equity joint ventures, franchise and hotel management agreements. He played the same role at Portfolio Hotels & Resorts, the full-service hotel management company he co-founded as an affiliate of The Harp Group, where he negotiated and documented dozens of hotel management contracts, along with the full suite of ancillary financing and collateral agreements that accompany them.