Hartford Business Journal

16 Hartford Business Journal • September 2, 2019 • www.HartfordBusiness.com By Gregory Seay gseay@HartfordBusiness.com M ichael Seidenfeld, whose New York realty company Shelbourne Global LLC has in- vested more than $200 million buying and refurbishing down- town Hartford commercial buildings, views Pratt Street as an untapped jewel. It's not a wholly unique viewpoint. Many business, civic, and economic-develop- ment leaders along with residents and visitors to the city have long viewed the bricked, block-long, one-lane thoroughfare hugged on both sides by multi-story com- mercial buildings as an underleveraged asset that could be the cornerstone of Hartford's downtown revival. For years, however, Pratt Street has been held back by significant retail and commercial vacancies and lack of investment. That could soon change and Shel- bourne Global LLC, with two well- known Hartford landlords as partners, is trying to lead the revival. Earlier this year, Shelbourne bought nearly all of the commercial build- ings on Pratt St.'s south side, from 196 Trumbull St. to the building next door up to 57 Pratt St., and is part of a triumvirate of developer-landlords that recently unveiled an ambitious $100 million redevelopment vision they say would not just transform Pratt Street, but the entire corridor stretching from the XL Center and Trumbull Street, to Main Street and beyond to the Talcott Plaza parking garage. "The fact that it's one block,'' Se- idenfeld, Shelbourne's chief operating officer, said of Pratt Street. "There's so much history here. That's a unique story we want to preserve.'' In June, Shelbourne, Hartford landlord Martin J. Kenny, of Lexington Partners LLC, the project lead, and city parking magnate Alan Lazowski, of LAZ Parking, pitched the Capital Re- gion Development Authority on their Pratt Street proposal. They also asked CRDA to consider co-funding the proj- ect with a $20 million subsidy. The plan essentially has three com- ponents: redevelopment on Pratt and Trumbull streets; repairing and reopen- ing the Talcott Plaza garage; and acqui- sition and redevelopment of The Lofts at Main and Temple into more apartments. Once fully complete, the partners say their redevelopment will count 375 apartments — 257 of them new; 45,058 square feet of retail on Trumbull/Pratt/ Main streets; and 1,308 parking spaces for residents and shoppers. Currently, the developers are ham- mering out final details of their part- nership and trying to obtain financing, while working to purchase The Lofts at Main and Temple apartment prop- erty, which has been in foreclosure, and related parcels, including 42 units of student townhomes erected to the rear. Eventually, those will be reconfig- ured into 84 micro apartments. The scope of their planned redevel- opment is huge. It would include six Pratt and Trumbull street buildings that Shelbourne owns, with 193 apart- ments totaling 143,657 square feet and 32,330 square feet of retail. The partnership will also repair and reopen the mothballed One Talcott Plaza parking garage creating 960 parking spaces. Some work on the planned redevel- opment is already set to begin. Conver- sion of upper-floor space into 131 apart- ments — including 32 "micro units'' — will begin this fall at 196 Trumbull and 99 Pratt, with both ready for oc- cupancy by late 2020, Kenny says. The Pratt Street project likely would take shape around the same time as the proposed $200 million redevelopment of the city's nearby Downtown North (DoNo) tracts. Both projects happening in tandem would give another major boost to downtown. CRDA Executive Director Michael Freimuth said the $20 million in as- sistance the Pratt Street partners have tentatively sought is nearly as much as the $17.5 million in CRDA aid that Fair- field architect/landlord Bruce Becker received to redevelop the 777 Main St. office tower into 290 apartments. However, Pratt, plus two more devel- opment proposals — Downtown North and Bushnell South — threaten to strain CRDA's limited downtown bond authority, he said. "Each will be in phases," Freimuth said, "but will essentially use up CRDA High Hopes Can a $100M redevelopment plan turn Pratt Street into Hartford's crown 'jewel'? A trio of Hartford and New York landlord/developers propose a $100 million transformation of the Pratt Street corridor with apartments and retail space, extending from Trumbull Street (above) to Main Street. The project also would include a makeover of the Talcott Plaza parking garage, blocks northwest of the corridor. Shown above are key downtown parcels to be redeveloped in the Pratt Street project. RENDERING | CONTRIBUTED IMAGE | CONTRIBUTED

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