Hartford Business Journal

HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | JANUARY 22, 2024 9 Funding your business's full potential. Grow your business with the help of our experienced commercial lending professionals. Contact our commercial lending officers at liberty-bank.com/commercial-lending Member FDIC Equal Housing Lender. All loans are subject to credit and underwriting approval. They refurbished the 42,586-square- foot building at 56 Costello Road and opened their second Ashley store. In August 2020, Sami and Nazeeh Abunasra paid $1.12 million for adja- cent commercial properties totaling nearly 3 acres in West Hartford's Elmwood neighborhood. The property at 1061 New Britain Ave. includes a 156,114-square-foot complex of three commercial buildings. The property at 1051 New Britain Ave. hosts a 13,648-square-foot retail building. The brothers opened an Ashley store at 1061 New Britain Ave., but closed it in 2022. Ashley had approved the location on an interim basis, but would have required costly upgrades to maintain it long term, Sami Abunasra said. That sort of expenditure was off the table after the brothers decided they wanted to flatten the site and build a 150-unit multifamily housing development within West Hartford's newly adopted transit-oriented development zone. Sami Abunasra said he plans to break ground on that estimated $34 million mixed-use redevelopment, located across from a CTfastrak bus stop, this year. He is working with West Hartford planning staff to finalize project details. 'Rough and tough' The Abunasra brothers prefer to own the buildings that house their stores. That prompted their January 2022 purchase of a 92,400-square- foot Manchester retail plaza, at 200 Hale Road, where they opened their first Ashley furniture location. They paid $4.75 million for the prop- erty, and currently lease surplus space to an Urban Air trampoline park. The steady stream of investments, financed through debt and equity, continued in July 2023, when they bought the vacant 161,744-square-foot building and 11.45 acres that are part of the struggling Brass Mill Center mall in Waterbury. The site was formerly home to a Macy's department store. In December, the brothers opened an Ashley Outlet in a roughly 30,000-square-foot section of the Waterbury property. That leaves about 130,000 square feet of available space on the top and bottom floors of the building. Sami Abunasra said he's working to recruit one or two more retailers for the top floor, which has the best exposure. He is contemplating uses for the bottom floor, which opens to the rear of the property. Abunasra said he hopes to add a restaurant and is considering retail pad sites in the extensive parking area of the former Macy's site. He said he is also considering hiring a development team to oversee projects in his fast-growing portfolio. He does not expect to pursue any investment under $5 million going forward, he said. And he doesn't expect to slow the pace any time soon. "I love it," Abunasra said. "I love the challenge. I would encourage anybody thinking about this to take those first steps into the future. The first four or five years were rough and tough, but I enjoyed every day. Every day there is a challenge, but you dictate what you want to do and how you want to do it." Sami Abunasra at the former Macy's property in Waterbury, at 575 Union St., which he and his brother purchased in July for $3.3 million. HBJ PHOTO | MICHAEL PUFFER

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