Hartford Business Journal

6 HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | JUNE 2, 2025 DE AL WATCH | BUYERS & SELLERS 860.482.7613 | www.borghesibuilding.com 2155 East Main Street, Torrington, CT 06790 Check out our new website! Do you need a specialty building for your business? Do you need a specialty building for your business? © 2011 BlueScope Buildings North America, Inc. All rights reserved. Butler Manufacturing ™ is a division of BlueScope Buildings North America, Inc. Creating "Building Ideas That Work" has been the Borghesi specialty since 1942. We are prepared to work with you all the way from concept to occupancy. PROJECT SPOTLIGHT NETTLETON HILL FARM MassMutual sells sprawling Enfield office campus for just under $4M A Branford-based development group has paid $3.99 million for life insurer MassMutual's 65.5-acre office complex off Interstate 91 in Enfield. The property had been on the market since early 2018, when MassMutual announced plans to move about 1,500 jobs to Springfield. That cost the town its largest single employer. MassMutual sold its campus, and a neighboring sliver of land, last month to limited liability companies sharing a Bran- ford address with MB Financial Group. The Branford real estate development and investment group — led by CEO and Managing Partner Michael Massimino — has recently acquired several high-profile properties in Connecticut, announcing plans for apartment redevelopments. MB Financial has also pursued retail and parking projects. The property at 100 Bright Meadow Blvd. is significant. It features a four-story, 472,536-square-foot office building; 452,298-square-foot parking garage; 6,375-square-foot day care center building; and a helipad. MassMutual bought the property from Phoenix Home Life Insurance Co. for $74 million in 2004, and then completed a $38 million renovation in 2014. 100 Bright Meadow Blvd., Enfield. PHOTO | COSTAR DANBURY A plan to turn a 10-story, 240-room Danbury hotel into a 198-unit apartment complex has been unanimously approved by the city's Planning Commission. The redevelopment, at 18 Old Ridgebury Road, will be carried out by Danbury-based BRT Properties. The company purchased the former Crowne Plaza Hotel in November 2021 for $8 million, property records show. The redeveloped site will have 24,451 square feet of interior space, 121,739 square feet of open space and 383 parking spaces. It will also feature a 20,000-square-foot makerspace, 6,000-square-foot restaurant and 4,000-square-foot arcade coffee shop, among other amenities. STRATFORD A developer has bought a long-time vacant lot in Stratford for $3.15 million with plans to build a four-story, 119-unit apartment complex that will include 1,254 square feet of ground- floor retail space. Will McCallister, of Stratford, has purchased the 2.57-acre property, at 382 Ferry Blvd., from Amir Nechmad, of New York, according to Richard Ballou, a broker with Houlihan Lawrence Wareck D'Ostilio, who repre- sented the buyer and the seller with broker Casey Fisher. "This property has been sitting there looking gnarly for too long," McAllister told the Hartford Business Journal. He said the ground floor will house a coffee shop or restaurant, lounge and a gym. Site prep work has already begun, he said. An old commercial building on-site will be demolished. McCallister in August 2024 completed construction of The Cornerstone, a four-story, 46,000-square-foot building with 46 apartments and 6,000 square feet of commercial space close by at 211 Ferry Blvd. "Once I realized how much apartments were needed in Stratford, I decided to build here," he said, adding that he gets dozens of phone calls a week from people requesting more housing in town. The town's Planning and Zoning Commission in 2018 approved a prior plan by another devel- oper for 119 apartments on the site that never came to fruition, McCallister said. ENFIELD Busy developer Avner Krohn has sold an Enfield retail property for $2 million to a medical spa that is currently a tenant in the building. Krohn in 2015 paid $390,000 for the 1940- vintage, 7,742-square-foot retail strip at 841 Enfield St., and then extensively rehabbed the building. In May, he sold the property, via online auction site Ten-X, to a limited liability company controlled by Leah Kenney, who owns The Shot Shop, a medical spa occupying one of the building's three storefronts. Krohn, who runs Jasko Development, has been focused on apartment developments, particularly in downtown New Britain. He said the Enfield sale is part of a broader strategy to divest smaller properties in his portfolio to focus on larger-scale projects.

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