Hartford Business Journal

HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | AUGUST 21, 2023 7 DEAL WATCH: BUYERS & SELLERS TM IonBank.com • 203.729.4442 Member FDIC With Ion Bank's financial help we've been able to help others. Joanie Wedler, Executive Director/CEO of Nutmeg TV New hotel on horizon in Southington A Massachusetts commercial developer is proposing a new hotel in Southington near Queen Street and I-84. Karm Properties, of Lynnfield, is looking to build a four-story hotel at 95 John Weichsel Crossing. The parcel is currently vacant land owned by Queen Spring LLC, of Southington, and principals Michelle Florian, Dennis Stanek Jr., and John Paul Thornton. Karm is under contract to purchase the roughly 8-acre property if all project applications are approved. The Southington Town Council in May approved a seven-year tax break for the project, which is expected to cost between $10 million and $12 million. The development is currently before the town's Inland Wetlands Agency, and the number of rooms has not yet been determined, said Mahavir Patel, president of Karm Properties. The project would have around 125 parking spaces, according to plans. Preliminary plans call for 12,390 square feet per floor, for a total project area of just under 50,000 square feet. A rendering of the new hotel planned for 95 John Weichsel Crossing, in Southington. NEW BRITAIN An 8,820-square-foot office building in a busy commercial area of Rocky Hill will find new life as headquarters for mental health, addiction and trauma recovery nonprofit Advocacy Unlimited, which recently paid $940,000 for the property. Built in 1964, the two-story building is at 2075 Silas Deane Highway. "We are so very excited about this purchase and the opportunity to relocate and grow into the space," said Michaela Fissel, Advocacy Unlim- ited's executive director. "This is a huge step for our organization. This is a time to celebrate because this is our first time purchasing property." The seller, Destiny Properties, paid $550,000 for the property in 2003. Its principal is Dana Rafiee, of Henderson, Nevada. Launched in 1989, Advocacy Unlimited offers multiple peer-to-peer services around mental health, addiction and trauma recovery, including training for recovery workers. Well over 1,500 people have graduated from this program, Fissel said. The nonprofit had a $2 million budget and employed 29 people in 2021, according to its most recently available federal tax return. NEW HAVEN Yale University has purchased an office building in the Prospect Hill neighborhood near its campus for just under $3 million. The office space, at 400 Prospect St., was sold to the university for $2.85 million by Gable LLC and principal Constance D. D'Atri in a deal recorded Aug. 4. The 2.5-story brick building has almost 7,000 square feet of space in the city's Prospect Hill Historic District. It sits in proximity to the Yale Divinity School and Science Park. Yale officials said they have "no current plans to take the property off the tax rolls, and the univer- sity plans to have the current tenants continue to occupy the space." The property has an appraised value of more than $700,000. EAST HARTFORD A multi-state cannabis company headquartered in Michigan plans to build a 72,366-square-foot cultivation site in East Hartford. Launched about six years ago, C3 Industries currently employs about 800 people with 20 retail locations and 250,000 square feet of marijuana growing and production space in Michigan, Massachusetts, Missouri and Oregon. C3 is in the process of expanding to three new states, including a planned facility along Park Avenue in East Hartford, according to CEO Ankur Rungta. The project recently received town approval. Rungta said C3, which won a state license for the grow facility, has a purchase agree- ment in place to buy the western half of the 120,617-square-foot industrial building at 241 Park Ave., and a roughly 15,000-square-foot portion of the industrial complex at 217-221 Park Ave. Between property, equipment and renovation costs, Rungta said the East Hartford project is a roughly $12 million investment. He said the facility could begin operations as soon as the second quarter of 2024, with plans to eventually employ about 70 people.

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