HBJ Photo | Joe Cooper
The Lofts at Main & Temple include 42 student townhomes.
December 16, 2019
Development trio to secure key pieces for Hartford’s Pratt St. makeover
Renderings | Contributed
A rendering of what the The Lofts at Main and Temple in downtown Hartford could look like after renovations are made to the townhome complex.
By Matt Pilon
A development group could soon hold the mortgages to two significant downtown Hartford properties they plan to incorporate into a $100-million transformation of downtown’s Pratt Street corridor.
Martin J. Kenny of Lexington Partners LLC said Friday that he and his development partners -- Shelbourne Global LLC and LAZ Parking CEO Alan Lazowski -- expect to purchase the note this week for 884-908 Main St., The Lofts at Main and Temple (formerly the Sage-Allen department store) as well as 42 adjacent student townhomes at 29 Temple St.
He declined to disclose financial terms of the deal ahead of closing, but said the hope is to begin work in 2020. The plan includes converting the properties into more apartments and renovating the units that will remain. There would be a total of 180 units across the two properties, when all is said and done.
The Temple Street real estate bookends the eastern entrance to Pratt Street, where work has begun on the first phase of a project that’s expected to ultimately include several hundred new apartments, retail space and 1,300 parking spaces that would be mostly located in a repaired and reopened Talcott Plaza garage, located one block north of Temple Street.
The Temple Street acquisitions could be well timed, as the state Bond Commission is poised to approve more than $12 million in financing on Wednesday for the first phase of the Pratt Street project.
The Pratt partners’ preliminary plans for the Lofts property include remodeling the 78 existing apartment units and adding six new ones, also incorporating nearly 13,000-square-feet of ground-floor retail space.
At the adjacent property, they plan to convert 30 of the 42 townhomes into smaller apartment units, mostly one bedrooms and studios, which would result in 96 total units, Kenny said.
There would also be new siding and stonework on the facade to help improve what the developers have described as a “monolithic view” along Temple Street.
There are also plans to convert a shared courtyard in a community greenspace with patios.
"It's a little stark,” Kenny said of the property’s current configuration. “What we want to do is warm it up.”
The two properties are the subject of a foreclosure action filed earlier this year by Elizon DB Transfer Agent LLC, a Greenwich-based entity that owns the two notes, originated by the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority back in 2004.
The original borrower, 18 Temple Street LLC, struggled to keep current on the payments, and CHFA said it was ultimately forced to sell the assets in a competitive bidding process, won by Elizon with an $18.2 million bid. CHFA took a nearly $25 million haircut on the sale.
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