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n e w h a v e n b i z . c o m N o v e m b e r / D e c e m b e r 2 0 1 8 | n e w h a v e n B I Z 47 square feet, extremely high ceilings and close proximity to major high- ways and the company's labor pool," O'Hara says. "Prior to finding the building at 12 Commerce Street, I worked with BTX on a number of properties that were not a perfect fit." At one point, O'Hara adds, BTX considered the possibility of buying a building suitable only for use as an office. roughout the process, O'Hara kept searching commercial prop- erty databases with hundreds of listings. Finally, on a sultry late summer day in 2015, O'Hara recalls spotting a property for lease matching the requisite criteria. Suddenly, he realized why it looked familiar. In 1997, O'Hara had represent- ed the Travelers Insurance Co. in selling 12 Commerce Street to August-ourd, a commercial real estate investment firm. e $2.75 million sale was one of many in the "foreclosure fallout" following the collapse of the commercial real estate market, he says. e property changed hands again in 2005, when it sold for $5 million to Minskoff Grant Realty & Management Corp., which manages properties in New York City, Westches- ter and Connecticut. By 2015, the building, still owned by Minskoff, had been empty for several years, and was filled with mattresses and mattress innards from the Latex Foam business. "It basically was gutted but structurally sound, and the site had all the major attributes for a distribution facility and a beautiful corporate office setting," O'Hara says. "Nine months before BTX bought the property, I contacted the owners, to see whether they would consider selling because BTX didn't want to lease." Aer several meetings, O'Hara says, the owners met the magic criterion: "motivated to sell." Al Mirin, Michael Norris and Jonathan Schindler of Cushman & Wakefield represented Minskoff in the $3.85 million sale of the 5.05 acre property, which was finalized in May 2016. Says O'Hara: "BTX got a very good price." e year-long renovation of 12 Commerce Drive included instal- lation of high-efficiency lighting and HVAC equipment, and the creation of 75 office cubicles with sit-stand desks, 25 private offices, a fitness center, a kitchen and lounge area, several loading docks and a 40,000-square-foot warehouse and fulfillment center. Shelton Mayor Mark A. Lauretti and State Sen. Kevin Kelly (R-21) were among guests attending the opening festivities this June. ough the building search took a while, the end result was worth the wait, according to BTX CFO Martin J. Capuano. "We needed to find a facility that could fit both our corporate headquarters and our logistics operations," Capuano says, and 12 Commerce Drive "was large enough to accommodate those needs." O'Hara, who has brokered major deals following protracted property searches, including the $3 mil- lion sale of Hubbell Inc.'s Orange campus to the University of New Haven, believes in perseverance. "It takes patience to make the right deal happen," he says, "rather than just to make a transaction." n — Karen Singer Coldwell Banker Commercial's O'Hara: Some- times patience is a virtue. For information on our print and digital advertising opportunities, contact Ronni Rabin at rrabin@newhavenbiz.com or call 203-937-2148 (x 707) New Haven's Business Community has a strong, new voice newhavenbiz.com If you're trying to sell something, its not easy to get to the CEO. You can reach around the wall of defense by putting your message in New Haven BIZ. We're reaching the tough to access decision makers in greater New Haven that can buy from you. Get your message into the C-suite with New Haven BIZ. Reach the Corner Office

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