Hartford Business Journal

www.HartfordBusiness.com February2,2015•Hartford Business Journal 5 Subscribe it's in print Subscribe today and get access to the information that Central Connecticut business people and decision makers use every day. To subscribe call 845-267-3008 or go to www.HartfordBusiness.com You'll find it in print • Need to grow your busiNess? • research your competitioN? • FiNd hartFord's latest busiNess News aNd ecoNomic treNds? G r e at e r H a r t f o r d ' s B u s i n e s s n e w s w w w. H a r t f o rd B u s i n e s s . c o m for more B2B news visit March 31, 2014 Volume 22, number 19 $3.00 subscribe online June 5, 2014 Only 10 weeks until C T B E x p o . c o m Index ■ Reporter's Notebook: PG. 5 ■ Week in Review: PG. 6 ■ The List: PG. 10 ■ Deal Watch: PG. 11 ■ Nonprofit Notebook: PG. 19 ■ Opinion & Commentary: PG. 20 Faces oF Business Main Street Mainstay Manchester's Bray Jewelers has survived for almost 100 years. Read about the family business' secrets to success and what makes customers keep coming back. PG. 3 Focus: economic DeveloPment Social Entrepreneurship Hartford business accelerator aims to nurture socially conscious businesses. PG. 8 Music copyright lawsuits cost restaurants unexpected thousands By Matt Pilon mpilon@HartfordBusiness.com A few years ago, nine songs were played inside Shelton's Vazzy's Cucina restaurant that ended up costing owners John Vazzano and Vincent L. Noce $18,000. That's because an agent of licensing giant Broadcast Music Inc., which represents the artists who owned the tracks, attested to being present when the tunes were played and sued Vazzano and Noce for copyright infringement, claiming the restaurant's music qualified as a public per- formance. Under federal copyright law, that meant the restaurant had to pay for the rights to play the songs, BMI said. Vazzano said he thinks a private party actually played the tunes. Broadcast Music Inc. • Founded in 1939 • Represents more than 600,000 songwriters and publishers with more than 8.5 million songs. • Distributed 85 cents of every dollar in licensing revenue in royalties — that amounted to $814 million in fiscal 2013. By Gregory Seay gseay@HartfordBusiness.com B y late May, the Corporation For Independent Living (CIL) expects to have in its hands title to the derelict Capewell Horse- nails factory in Hartford's South End in a bid to convert the idle eyesore into 72 apartments and an adjacent parcel into 24 affordable townhomes. If it does, it will open another fruit- ful chapter for a South End nonprofit that has leveraged — and exported — its talent as a group-home developer to shelter a diverse swath of central Connecticut's population. It, too, will be one of the final swan songs before the yearend retirement of its first and only chief executive. Since its launch in 1979 to finance, build, lease out — then ultimately give away — supportive shelter for thou- sands of the state's physically and mentally disabled, CIL has invested $458 million to construct or convert 2,205 dwelling units into shelter for 7,200 residents in Connecticut and Massachusetts. For at least a dozen years, CIL has applied that same skill set to its expand- ing for-profit realty development opera- tions that include Capewell, and a neigh- boring nonprofit-office-space cluster. In February, CIL announced it bought and will resume work on the $3.34 mil- lion Depot Crossing mixed-use project John Vazzano, owner of Vazzy's Cucina in Shelton, was upset when his restaurant had to pay $18,000 to settle a music copyright lawsuit. P h o t o | P a b l o R o b l e s Continued on page 16 Continued on page 15 Martin "Marty'' Legault, president and CEO, Corporation For Independent Living (CIL) With Legault, developer CIL soars as landlord Sued for a ong A second-generation broker takes CAR's reins By Gregory Seay gseay@HartfordBusiness.com F or Meriden Realtor Sandra Maier Schede, the desire to help cli- ents buy and sell real estate is in her genes. Her parents opened their Maier Real Estate agency in 1959 in her pater- nal grandfather's former pet shop on South Broad Street, the same office that today Maier and her brother oversee as partners, plus a sales staff that includes her nephew — a third generation in the family's real estate business. Maier Schede — "Sandy" to family, friends and clients — got her realty license at 16, while a high- school junior, before the state raised the realty agents' mini- mum age to 18. More than 40 years later, she's still at it and, at age 58, has no immedi- ate plans to curtail her nearly ceaseless work schedule or retire. "I grew up in it, so it was a natural thing for me, a natural progression,'' she said. "One thing I've learned is there's always a market good or bad, because people always need housing.'' Maier Schede's career longevity and her extensive contributions to the industry as a volunteer leader and advocate at the realty industry's local, state and national levels earned her election as 2015 president of the 15,000-member Connecticut Association of Realtors (CAR), the state's largest lobby for Realtors and related professionals. Both her parents — Jack and Theresa Maier — too, were active in local realty leadership and as city leaders. Her industry engagement, she said, helps her be a better broker because she is abreast early of new developments and changes. For instance, Maier Schede recently attended a meeting in Washington D.C., as a member of the risk-management commit- tee of the National Association of Realtors, in which the panel crafted policy — later adopted — covering the use of aerial vehicles, or "drones,'' to collect overhead images of properties. The measure, she said, was a pre-emptive move by the national Realtors' lobby for a technology whose use is gaining traction outside the defense industry with commer- cial proponents, including Amazon.com, as a way to ship goods directly to customers. "They didn't want Realtors getting in trouble by using them,'' Maier Schede said of aerial drones. Statewide turf Her list of involvement and leadership with various realty associations and committees and community agencies is as long as her arm. Despite those commitments, Maier Schede found time to sit on the Meriden school board and to serve one term on the city council. Mar- ried, she has a daughter who is a professor at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte. Maier Schede says all of Connecticut is her sales turf, driven by repeat clients who fre- quently send referrals her way. "Anyone who's in real estate needs to be as well-educated in their profession as they can be,'' she said. "When you sell real estate, it can be all absorbing because there's always some- thing to do. It's a self-motivating job.'' "I work at it day and night. I don't know what else I would do. You feel a personal responsibil- ity for the (clients) you're working for.'' William Raveis Real Estate broker Debra J. Chamberlain is Maier Schede's predecessor as CAR's immediate past president. "Sandy brings an impressive level of com- mitment and experience to the table as our 2015 president, which will benefit the association and our members greatly,'' said Chamberlain, associate manager in Raveis' Mystic office. "She has been involved in all aspects of our association throughout the years, and, as a bro- ker, she fully understands the many challenges our Realtor members face on a daily basis." In Connecticut's upcoming legislative ses- sion, Maier Schede and her CAR mates will be promoting a bill to allow brokers to be paid for real estate "price opinions'' which they now provide gratis to clients. Such opinions are vital in valuing realty assets for foreclo- sures, divorces and probate matters, among others, realty experts say. Last year, Realtors successfully pushed through a foreclosure streamlining measure that shortens the lag time inherent in Con- necticut's judicial foreclosure process. It took effect Jan. 1, so it's too early yet to gauge its impact, realty officials say. Maier Schede began her career back when prime interest rates were at 18 percent to 21 percent amid rampant inflation that effec- tively stalled the starter-home and moveup markets in the late 1970s. Today, she likes what she's seeing, with mortgage interest rates now as low as 3 percent. Also, state and federal housing programs are back with low-downpayment mortgages and downpayment assistance programs. The Federal Housing Administra- tion's recent announcement of a slight reduc- tion in mortgage-insurance premiums means more first-time buyers are likely to qualify. "We're starting to see banks start to loosen up their underwriting standards,'' the Realtor said. She also pointed to national real estate data showing a 25 percent rise in average home prices in the last three years, another sign of a housing-market recovery. "It's still a buyer's market. But people tend to wait until spring to put a house on the mar- ket.'' Maier Schede said. That has led, she said, to a lack of saleable inventory, which is one thing for which she and other Realtors are clamoring. Portable computers and smartphones, Maier Schede says, have put a raft of house listings, pricing, mortgage products and other realty services at consumers' finger- tips, helping extend the home sales/buying season beyond warm-weather months. But when it comes to buying a home, the technology ultimately has its limits, she said. "You can look on the Internet all you want,'' she said, "but it comes down to people's feel- ings about the house, their emotions, a Real- tor's knowledge about the market and a confi- dence level in who they're dealing with.'' As a mother who footed her daughter's college bill, she worries about the impact of fresh graduates who are postponing home ownership because they are burdened with student-loan debt. Finding solutions for them fits with her theme for 2015 as CAR president: "Reigniting the American dream.'' Maier Schede acknowledges the industry consolidation that has led to a number of small- er Connecticut real estate agencies closing or merging with bigger operators like billionaire Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Home- Services expansion into this state last year. "I like to say your favorite restaurant isn't McDonald's,'' she said. "It's probably some little deli somewhere. There's room for all of us.'' n Broker Sandra Maier Schede, of Maier Real Estate in Meriden, is the 2015 president of the Connecticut Association of Realtors, the state's largest realty lobby. P H O T O | P a b l O R O b l e s

• Cover