Hartford Business Journal

22 HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | JUNE 30, 2025 Joseph Gramando Glendowlyn Thames D eveloper Joseph Gramando may be from New York, but he has been adopted and embraced by Waterbury political and business leaders over the past decade as his company has tackled some of the largest redevelopment projects in the city's downtown. Gramando is the face of Green Hub Development, which he co-founded in 2016 with Louis Forster, an invest- ment executive and longtime friend. The partners' first project in Water- bury was a $5 million redevelopment of the top two floors of a mixed-use office building, at 20 E. Main St., near the downtown Waterbury UConn branch campus. Green Hub converted vacant office space in the upper floors of the Brown Building into a privately run dormitory for up to 92 college students. The bottom floor has remained retail. Green Hub followed that project up with a roughly $15 million transfor- mation of the 114,000-square-foot former Howland Hughes Department Store, on Bank Street, into office space leased by Post University. I t's no secret that Amazon finds Connecticut attractive — and not just because the state offers a wealthy customer base. The e-commerce giant has opened more than a dozen large- scale warehouses in the state over the last decade-plus, making Connecticut a major distribution hub for the company to not only New England but the broader East Coast. Leading the company's efforts in Connecticut lately is a familiar name: Glendowlyn Thames. Thames joined Amazon in November 2021 as head of economic development for the states of Connecticut and New York. Her background made her a natural fit for the role. Previously, she served as deputy commissioner of the state Department of Economic and Community Development under the Lamont administration, and was the founding executive director of CTNext, an economic development organization created to spur innova- tion in the state. Just over half of the cost for the project — which was completed in late 2018 — was covered by state grant funds. This past December, Green Hub wrapped up a redevelopment of a 130-year-old, six-story downtown office building, at 36 North Main St., into a mix of classroom and lab space for the neighboring UConn Waterbury campus, along with first- floor retail space. Gramando claimed the sixth floor of the former Odd Fellows Building as office space for his development efforts. From there, he is negotiating with the city of Waterbury on a plan to buy the shuttered St. Mary's Catholic Grammar School, at 55 Cole St. and 320 East Main St., and convert it into apartments catering to medical workers. Gramando said he's eyeing additional multifamily development projects in downtown Waterbury. "I think there's a lot of opportunity here," Gramando said. "I care about the city. I care about the people here. I enjoy coming here. That's really my motivation in Waterbury. I enjoy it." She also previously served as chair of the Hartford City Council. After a brief lull in new activity coming out of the pandemic, Amazon appears to be recharging its expansion efforts in the state. It has a few major projects in the works. The company recently paid $20 million for two undeveloped parcels in Enfield, along Bacon Road, totaling around 200 acres. One of the parcels was recently approved for development of an 819,000-square-foot warehouse. Amazon confirmed its purchase of the property, but didn't disclose its development plans. In April, Amazon purchased 157 acres from the city of Waterbury for $2.5 million, setting the stage for construction of a roughly 3.2 million- square-foot logistics center that will exist in both the Brass City and neighboring Naugatuck. Currently, Amazon has about 16 delivery, fulfillment and sorting facil- ities in Connecticut encompassing more than 7 million square feet of space. POWE R 25 | RE AL ESTATE

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