Downtown Hartford’s Bond Residences plans $1M renovation to recapture some of the look of the 1920s and the Hotel Bond

As Hartford emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic, the owner of the Bond Residences on Asylum Street plans about $1 million in renovations to put the building’s recent past as an extended-stay hotel behind it and carve out a new place in downtown’s apartment market.

Paul Khakshouri, the building’s owner, said he plans to bring back key, original elements that were in the building when a 12-story wing topped with a ballroom was added in 1921 to what for decades was the Hotel Bond.

Those historic touches are expected to include moving the main entrance to its original location at the far left side, opening into the original lobby — the place to see and be seen in the city during the 1920s and 1930s.

“You want the tenants to walk into the building with a complete feel that it’s a residential lobby rather than when they walk into it now, it’s very hotel-like,” Khakshouri said. “I had to move from that challenge of people saying, ‘Oh, we know this used to be a hotel.’ I need that stigma to go away.”

He hopes the project will be completed within a year.

Khakshouri closed the previous extended-stay hotel, a Homewood Suites, more than a year ago, early on in the pandemic, as hotel bookings tanked in the city and occupancy plunged. In September, Khakshouri began leasing the former guest suites as short-term rentals, an easy transition because they included kitchens.

Leasing was slow initially, but it has picked up significantly in the past two months, Khakshouri said. About 60% of the 116 apartments are now leased, and Khakshouri said he has moved away from short-term rentals to full-year leases.

Khakshouri attributes the uptick in leasing to relocations into the city by New Yorkers, more people coming back to work in the city and people taking advantage of a hot home sale market to downsize to a city apartment.

On top of increased leasing, Khakshouri said the Bond Ballroom will reopen for a wedding Saturday, after being closed since the start of the pandemic.

He says he has other reasons to be optimistic that now is the time for further investment.

Last year, Khakshouri completed the conversion of three historic buildings around the corner on Allyn Street into 66 market-rate apartments. The $21.1 million project got off to a slow start in leasing with the units coming on during the pandemic, but is now 91% occupied, according to the Capital Region Development Authority, which loaned $6.6 million to the project.

CRDA may be involved in helping finance the Bond renovations, although the project does not include much work on the apartments. The apartments were recently renovated, Khakshouri said, although the project could involve upgraded elevators, heating and cooling systems and the addition of amenities to make it competitive in the market.

Khakshouri said the new lobby won’t have all the flourishes of the original that spared no expense and included flowing rose and gray damask Louis XIV drapes, according to a front-page story in The Courant at its 1921 opening. But the lobby will be a “glamorous” space to step into, rivaling anything in New York City, Khakshouri said.

Funding a new look for the building still needs to clear a series of hurdles. Khakshouri needs to refinance debt on the Allyn Street property and pay off part of the CRDA loan on that property. Then, the CRDA board would have to approve using some of the proceeds to invest in the Bond.

Michael W. Freimuth, CRDA’s executive director, said the strategy is a good one for a building that was battered by the pandemic.

“It gets the property on a rescue path,” he said.

The Bond Residences have an enviable location just across from Bushnell Park, but Khakshouri said he hasn’t been happy with the building’s appearance. The gray paint “has got to go,” he said, and will be replaced by a beige stucco, in keeping with the original color scheme of the Hotel Bond, which closed in the 1960s.

“Asylum Street honestly looks miserable, especially my block and I just want to pretty that up as much as possible to make the entrance as nice as possible, like in 1921,” Khakshouri said.

Contact Kenneth R. Gosselin at kgosselin@courant.com.