New owners of vacant downtown Hartford office building on Asylum Street plan an apartment conversion
The owners of hundreds of apartments in New Haven have purchased their first two properties in downtown Hartford, and they have plans to convert one of them — a vacant, office building on Asylum Street — into residential rentals.
Investment partnerships headed by Shmuel Aizenberg of New Haven and connected to Ocean Management, also based in New Haven, have acquired the buildings at 201 Ann Uccello St. and 275 Asylum St. for $7.1 million from Yisroel Rabinowitz, of Brooklyn, N.Y.
Melissa Saint, a representative for Aizenberg, said the plans for 275 Asylum — long the location of the Morse School of Business and, more recently, the High School Inc. program of the Hartford Public Schools — call for an apartment conversion.
Saint said she did not have the details of how many rentals were planned or a timetable for construction.
“It’s the first toe in the water for Hartford,” Saint said.
Saint said she could not comment on plans for 201 Ann Uccello, which is just a block away from the Asylum Street building. Both properties are located near the XL Center.
Reporting by the New Haven Independent shows Ocean Management and Aizenberg as prolific acquirers of apartment and office buildings in the New Haven area in the past five years. Some of the apartments had been notoriously blighted and were renovated.
The purchase included $3.2 million for 201 Ann Uccello, a former Masonic Temple, that was converted into 26 residential rental units and began leasing in late 2014. The historic building was the first of the most recent wave of partially state-financed apartment rental conversions in the downtown area headed by the Capital Region Development Authority.
Leasing got off to a strong start, but Rabinowitz said as larger conversions came online, he said couldn’t compete with their amenities or parking options. The bars on Ann Uccello also were a turn-off for some prospective tenants, Rabinowtiz said.
Occupancy plunged after COVID-19 hit in 2020, as a chunk of out-of-state tenants broke leases to return home. A bar on street level also was shutdown as a result of state government-imposed pandemic restrictions. The property fell into foreclosure in January.
Rabinowitz said he decided to sell the two properties, worried about rising apartment vacancies in Hartford and elsewhere as the pandemic deepened. A partner in the four Spectra apartment properties downtown, including three at the corner of Pearl and Trumbull streets and one on Constitution Plaza, had similar concerns, selling stakes in those projects.
“In my mind, I said, ‘Let me get out of this before it’s too late,’ ” Rabinowitz said.
At least a half dozen apartment projects involving CRDA financing have had their loan terms modified because of the pandemic, especially those that were in construction or just launched leasing when COVID-19 struck.
In recent months, however, apartment buildings in the downtown area have rebounded in occupancies, many of them rising to or above levels prior to the pandemic, many at 90% or better, according to recent statistics from CRDA.
CRDA has provided low-cost loans to developers who have focused primarily on conversions of older — often vacant — office buildings since it was formed in 2012.
CRDA loaned $3.8 million to Rabinowitz for the $4.5 million conversion of 201 Ann Uccello. The quasi-public agency confirmed the loan has been fully repaid now that the property has been sold.
Rabinowitz said he still retains two properties in Hartford: the Corning Building, at the corner of Main and Asylum streets, and 110 Bartholomew Ave., the Parkville Business Center, in the Parkville neighborhood.
Contact Kenneth R. Gosselin at kgosselin@courant.com.
