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December 15, 2021

Hartford City Council OKs sale of downtown firehouse, municipal building for apartment redevelopments

SAM RODRIGUEZ | ALL AMERICAN AERIAL LLC The historic former fire station at 275 Pearl St. in Hartford.
By Michael Puffer

Joseph Klaynberg’s plans to redevelop a former firehouse and a municipal building in downtown Hartford got a major boost in late November as the City Council signed off on selling the properties.

The council vote allows Mayor Luke Bronin to finalize purchase-and-sale agreements with Klaynberg’s Wonder Works Construction Co. that will see the buildings transformed into apartments with ground-floor retail space.

The terms agreed by the council include $4.8 million in city loans through the Capital Region Development Authority and 10-year tax breaks. These make the developments financially feasible, officials said.

Klaynberg has a six-month “due diligence” period, with the possibility of three-month extensions, to put together financing.

Klaynberg anticipates completing the purchases in spring 2022, with construction beginning immediately. He aims to complete the building transformations by the end of 2023.

“At the moment, we are working with architects, designers and engineers to submit drawings and specifications for Department of Buildings approvals,” Klaynberg wrote in an email response to questions.

Klaynberg and his partners have added or renovated 559 apartments in Hartford’s downtown over the past decade, making him one of the city’s most prolific developers. The CRDA and officials have backed these and other apartment-building efforts downtown as vital to the economic recovery of the city center.

Under the terms of the tentative agreement, Klaynberg will pay $425,000 for the municipal office building at 525 Main St. The plan is to build 41 apartments, with ground-floor commercial space. The redevelopment has a $7.4 million projected cost.

Klaynberg will also pay $32,000 yearly to lease two associated parking lots on Wells Street, which he could purchase at any point for $162,000. The council vote allows for a five-year lease with one extension. The idea is that Klaynberg will build new apartment buildings on the parking lots at some point. But if the lots aren’t developed by the end of the second lease period, they would revert to the city.

Klaynberg is to pay $360,000 for the former firehouse at 275 Pearl St., which will be converted into 40 apartments with 4,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial space. The cost to redevelop the currently vacant building is projected at $9 million.

Conditions of the sales include city sign-off on designs as well as required targets for hiring of city residents, as well as city hiring targets for minority and women-owned companies for construction.

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