Hartford’s 18-story Millenium building comes off the auction block
CoStar
The Millenuium apartments building in downtown Hartford, at 50 Morgan St.
The city of Hartford has taken the 18-story Millenium apartment building off a list of properties scheduled to go up for tax auction on Monday following negotiations with its owners to catch up on nearly $1 million in back taxes.
A joint venture of Waterbury-based Axela Group and downtown Hartford landlord Shelbourne Global Solutions paid $22 million for the former Red Lion Hotel at 50 Morgan St., near Dunkin’ Park just north of the city center in 2021, with plans to spend about $8 million completing a conversion into 260 apartments that had stalled under the prior owner.
Recently, the building landed on a list of 44 properties up for sale at a tax auction, which is to be held at Dunkin’ Park. The listing, however, was removed in the most recent iteration of that list.
“Yes – we have resolved the tax issue with the city,” Shelbourne Chief Operating Officer Michael Seidenfield wrote in an email to the Hartford Business Journal on Tuesday.
According to a statement released by Hartford Corporation Counsel Howard Rifkin, the city postponed 50 Morgan Street’s appearance on the auction block because the owners anticipate refinancing its debt early this fall.
“That will allow for the repayment of all real estate taxes and interest owed the city, as well as the completion of the conversion of the building to all residential units and the reconstruction of the parking garage; and keeping progress going on that work is in the city’s best interest,” Rifkin said.
Shelbourne, the city’s largest downtown landlord, owns multiple office towers and has interests in various residential and retail developments around the city center as well.
The Brooklyn-based real estate investment giant is facing a foreclosure action by a lender on three Pratt Street buildings. Shelbourne has been working with partners to redevelop several properties on and around Pratt Street over the past couple years, with a focus on apartments, often mixed with first-floor retail.
Jonathan S. Cohen, trustee of the West Hartford-based Samuel Cohen Trust, filed a foreclosure action in Hartford Superior Court against a Shelbourne-affiliated limited liability company, claiming it is delinquent on payments of a $3.6 million loan secured with three Pratt Street buildings purchased in 2019.
Cohen is seeking to damages and to claim the properties at 55-59 Pratt St., 61-65 Pratt St. and 73-77 Pratt St.
Shelbourne plans to convert the three buildings, each of which is over a century-old, from a mix of office and first-floor retail to apartments above retail. Seidenfeld said that effort has been complicated and delayed by COVID-19 related jumps in construction costs and by the complexity of converting antique buildings to modern codes.
Seidenfeld said Shelbourne hopes to negotiate additional time with the lender to complete the project.
“We asked the lender to give us more time to bring the buildings online,” Seidenfeld said. “We are still planning to move forward and work through the issues to come up with a mutually beneficial solution.”
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