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July 25, 2024

Developer reduces apartments in Elmwood Lofts mixed-use project in West Hartford

Contributed An architect's drawing of the revised Elmwood Lofts mixed-use development project on New Britain Avenue in West Hartford.

A New Jersey-based developer planning a mixed-use redevelopment project on New Britain Avenue in West Hartford’s Elmwood section has reduced the number of apartments to be included in the building.

Sami Abunasra originally received site plan approval last year for a five-story building that would include 150 apartments with 17,241 square feet of restaurant and retail space at 1051-1061 New Britain Ave. The property includes the vacant former location of Puritan Furniture, which closed in 2020 after 88 years in business.

Abunasra has since received administrative approval to modify the project, called Elmwood Lofts. According to Town Planner Todd Dumais, Abunasra submitted a modified site plan in February that reduces the number of apartments. It received administrative approval in June, he said.

“I think they took a hard look at the proposal and associated construction costs and tried to make the building more buildable from an economic standpoint,” Dumais said. “That ultimately resulted in submitting a new application.”

Abunasra confirmed that on Wednesday, saying the decision to reduce the number of apartments was necessary after it was determined that an underground parking garage would not be feasible because of a high water table. The project originally proposed to build 128 spaces underground.

As a result, he said, the revised site plan reduces the number of apartments from 150 to 117, eliminates the underground parking and reduces the number of parking spaces overall from 209 to 166. The revised, all-above-ground parking lot now includes seven spaces that will offer electric vehicle charging stations and six spaces for handicapped parking.

According to the revised site plan, the number of apartments has been reduced in part by eliminating the proposed three-bedroom units. 

The original site plan proposed 84 one-bedroom apartments, 47 two-bedroom units, 15 studio units and four three-bedroom units. The revised site plan now includes 94 one-bedroom units, including 17 studio apartments, and 33 two-bedroom units.

Abunasra said that approximately 20% of the units will be designated as affordable housing, but that the final number has not yet been determined. At 20%, it would be about 23 units.

Overall, the revised site plan reduces the size of the five-story building from 205,262 square feet to 151,900 square feet. The building still includes a total of 10,860 square feet of restaurant space on the first and second floors and about 8,500 square feet of retail space on the ground floor.

The site is located just a couple of hundred yards from the Elmwood Station of the CTfastrak rapid busway, and is the first to take advantage of a new transit-oriented development district adopted by the Town Council in June 2023.

The district allows developers to build higher multifamily residential densities in a district near mass transit, with preference granted to applications that incorporate affordable housing, clean energy and underground parking in designs.

“The look and feel of the building still is consistent with the intent of the transit-oriented design district,” Dumais said of the revised site plan. “What I mean by that is, it’s still a five-story building with a ground floor retail zone, but the building itself is a little bit smaller.”

He added that because the original site plan was approved and the revisions still comply with “all the standards that were adopted and went through a public approval process,” any revised application required only administrative approval.

In January 2022, Gov. Ned Lamont announced a $953,646 brownfield grant for the redevelopment. 

Abunasra, who paid $1.1 million for the 2.97-acre property in 2020, said work has not yet started on the redevelopment project. He said the final design and construction documents are still being developed and he is still working to finalize financing.

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