Another iconic CT newspaper HQ building listed for sale
Michael Puffer | Hartford Business Journal
The Republican-American newspaper building at 389 Meadow St. in Waterbury.
A month after the Republican-American was sold to Hearst Connecticut Media Group, the iconic landmark building that long hosted the Waterbury-based news organization has gone up for sale.
The 70,000-square-foot brick building features a 245-foot-tall clock tower adorned with gargoyles and is familiar to anybody who regularly passes through Waterbury. The building, which once served as the city’s passenger rail station, sits on nearly 2.4 acres on Meadow Street in the heart of the city.
The property is being listed on several commercial real estate brokerage sites as a redevelopment opportunity with an asking price of $4.95 million. Parker Benjamin Real Estate Services is acting as the broker for the property, according to those listings.
The property was not among the commercial listings posted on Parker Benjamin’s website Monday morning.
Parker Benjamin is a Farmington-based investment banking firm providing financial and real estate advisory services. It also engages in real estate development, with significant experience in redeveloping historic properties.
In December, the Hartford Business Journal reported that Parker Benjamin was partnering with the owner of the Republican-American building – a company led by the newspaper’s former publisher, William B. Pape – in a proposal to transform the property into a mix of 38 luxury apartments, along with office and retail space.
American Republican Inc. continues to own the building following the sale of the newspaper business. Attempts to reach representatives of Parker Benjamin and American Republican Inc. were not immediately successful Monday morning.
The city’s Board of Aldermen, in December, agreed for the city to apply for a $250,000 state grant to pay for detailed architectural and site planning. According to the application for those funds, Parker Benjamin had been working with city and state officials for more than a year to prepare a proposal for a mixed-use redevelopment, with costs estimated at $12 million.
More than $100,000 has been spent advancing those plans.
At the time, the newspaper and Parker Benjamin asserted the Republican-American would continue to occupy 10,000 square feet of the building.
Waterbury Mayor Paul Pernerewski, on Monday, the property is located in prime location next to the city's passenger rail station and at one corner of an industrial corridor targeted for redevelopment. Pernerewski said he is optimistic the proposed mixed-use redevelopment will continue to advance.
Completed in 1909, the “Union Station” building was designed in the Renaissance Revival style for the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad Co., according to the Society of Architectural Historians. The tower’s design was adapted from the 14th-century Torre del Mangia tower in Siena, Italy.
As railroad ridership declined following World War II, the building was slated for demolition, according to the Society of Architectural Historians. The Pape family purchased it in 1952 and retrofitted the building to house their growing newspaper organization, according to the society.
Today, the Republican-American building sits along a commuter rail line running between Waterbury and Bridgeport, and right next to a passenger train platform. Local officials have voiced enthusiasm for the potential for transit-oriented development.
Other Connecticut news media organizations, which have faced significant headwinds from the decline in traditional print media advertising, have also sold, or are in the process of selling, their former headquarters buildings including the The Day of New London and Hartford Courant.
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