Hartford Business Journal

8 HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | JANUARY 22, 2024 West Hartford businessman Sami Abunasra at the site of his newest Ashley furniture store in Waterbury, located at the Brass Mill Center mall. HBJ PHOTO | STEVE LASCHEVER Firm Ambition Abunasra brothers, with three Ashley furniture stores, plan to expand growing retail, real estate portfolio By Michael Puffer mpuffer@hartfordbusiness.com W est Hartford businessman Sami Abunasra learned the value of hard work at the side of his father, a Palestinian refugee who fled to Dubai in the late 1960s and built a comfortable middle- class life for his family. When Juma Abunasra wasn't teaching English at a local university, he was operating a freight brokerage business or building small multifamily residential developments. He arrived in Dubai before the United Arab Emirates' oil wealth propelled the city into the cosmopolitan and luxurious center it is today. "My dad instilled a traditional upbringing," Sami Abunasra said. "No complaints, just get it done. Don't blame anybody but yourself. Don't wait for opportunities, create them yourself." That's precisely what Abunasra and his brother and business partner, Dr. Nazeeh Abunasra, have done. Together they operate three Ashley furniture stores in Newington, Manchester and Waterbury, and have been increasingly involved in commercial real estate investment and development. The two are advancing a major 150-unit, transit-oriented apartment development in West Hartford, one of the region's hottest markets for new multifamily investment. In July, they paid $3.3 million for a 161,744-square-foot vacant section of Waterbury's Brass Mill Center mall, where they recently opened a new Ashley furniture store as part of a broader redevelopment plan. Separately, Sami Abunasra, 50, is seeking permits for a 12-lot subdivi- sion in Southington. Despite a general slowdown in real estate activity, Abunasra said he plans to open a fourth Ashley store in the Springfield area, while he considers several additional real estate investments. "There are always opportunities," Abunasra said. "When it slows down, it's the best time to buy. You just have to get the right deals and the right location, which is essential. You can see my residential deals — South- ington, West Hartford. You can never go wrong. Even if there is a market crash, there is no crash in West Hartford or Southington." Nazeeh Abunasra, 51, is a busy oral surgeon for Aspen Dental. He keeps informed about business dealings, provides investment capital and takes part in big-picture deci- sion-making, but leaves day-to-day management of joint ventures to his brother. "So far, it's been growing," Nazeeh Abunasra said of their business ventures and real estate portfolio. "Even with the bumps and difficulties in the economy, so far it's doing OK. I think the fact we combined the real estate (ownership) with the active business has helped us." Nazeeh Abunasra said he doesn't have time to actively manage investments. That left him with two options: traditional passive invest- ments in stocks and bonds, or partnering with his brother to create a more active, direct and hopefully profitable avenue. Building the portfolio Sami Abunasra finished an elec- trical engineering degree in Canada and then moved to New Jersey at age 24 in 1997. He worked IT jobs for AT&T, Merrill Lynch, a health- care startup and then the American Arbitration Association. He opened small businesses on the side, including a storefront IT training school and a medical trans- port company. Seventy- to 80-hour workweeks were standard. An IT career provided a good living, but Abunasra thought he could do better. He said he became restless. "I wanted to do a business," Abunasra said. "I wanted to do real estate. I wanted the sky to be the limit." He completed an executive MBA program at Columbia University in 2011, and took a business consulting job with Dell Technologies for nearly three years. Searching for business opportunities, Abunasra came across a contact who suggested opening an Ashley store, he said. It would require a regular fee for joint marketing efforts, but no further obligation, other than to sell exclu- sively from the Ashley furniture lines, Abunasra said. The company had a licensing opportunity in the Hartford area. Sami Abunasra enlisted his brother as a partner, and together they opened their first store in Manchester in November 2013. It was a roughly $1 million investment to lease the site, buy inventory and set up the store, Sami Abunasra said. The brothers followed up with a $2.91 million purchase of a closed Newington bowling alley in early 2017. Ashley furniture store portfolio The Abunasra brothers own Ashley furniture stores at the following locations: • 56 Costello Road, Newington • 200 Hale Road, Manchester • 575 Union St., Waterbury

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