East Hartford considers 8-year, $5.2M tax break for 150-unit apartment development
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A rendering of the layout of Simon Konover's proposed 150-unit apartment development at 341 East River Drive in East Hartford
East Hartford officials are considering an eight-year tax break worth an estimated $5.2 million to incentivize a 150-unit apartment development on a long-vacant property near the Connecticut River.
The Capital Region Development Authority last year approved a $6.5 million, low-interest bridge loan to help finance Simon Konover’s plan for an estimated $47.5 million apartment development on a 35-acre property at 341 East River Drive.
The West Hartford-based real estate development, management and investment company has owned the property for more than 40 years, and originally expected to build offices.
Now, the proposed apartment development would consist of four buildings, a clubhouse and dog park.
Konover’s development site sits just behind East Hartford’s Great River Park along the Connecticut River. It is immediately west of the Academy of Computer Science and Engineering Middle School, a magnet school run by CREC.
Konover’s site is also just south of the Founders Plaza office park, which a group of prominent developers is trying to redevelop into a mix of roughly 1,000 apartments, along with restaurants, retail and other commercial uses.
East Hartford's Town Council is expected to discuss the proposed tax abatement at its Tuesday night meeting.
East Hartford Mayor Connor Martin, on Monday, noted tax abatements are commonly used to incentivize development.
“We do so for the significant return on investment, which comes in the form of new housing units, grand list growth and incremental tax revenue growth,” Martin said. “Our goal is to enact shorter tax abatement deals to get development projects to full taxation faster, hence the 8 years.”
During the life of the eight-year deal, the town would continue to receive the $48,088 Konover pays in annual property taxes. Abatements on the added value would start at 100% in year one – saving the developer an estimated $863,940 – and would ratchet down gradually to 35% in the final year, which would spare the developer an estimated $359,434 in taxes.
After the abatement expires, the town expects the development to yield more than $1 million yearly in new tax revenue.
Newton C. Brainard, Simon Konover’s vice president of acquisitions and development, said the tax abatement would help the project overcome market challenges, including higher construction and financing costs, slowing rent growth and the uncertainty brought on by the Trump administration’s tariff policies.
“We are excited to begin the process with the town,” Brainard said Monday. “This is just one piece of a complicated development puzzle.”
Given mounting challenges to development, temporary tax relief of this sort has been implemented by a growing number of communities, Brainard said. He also noted the development will be an improvement on a site that has been simply “a very nice grass field” for decades.
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