NY realty investor that bet big on struggling CT malls buys mortgage on downtown Hartford office tower
PHOTOS | COSTAR
The Goodwin Square office tower in downtown Hartford, at 225 Asylum St.
A New York real estate investment and management firm that has acquired a string of struggling Connecticut malls has bought the mortgage on the 30-story Goodwin Square office tower in downtown Hartford.
In legal documents recorded in Hartford’s land records on March 6, a limited liability company affiliated with Great Neck, New York-based Namdar Realty Group bought the mortgage on the 340,247-square-foot office tower at 225 Asylum St. from M&T Bank.
The building’s current owner – Westport Capital Partners – was up to date on its loan payments, according to a marketing brochure circulated by real estate services firm Newmark ahead of the mortgage sale.
The building is about 76.1% leased, according to the Newmark brochure.
Attempts to reach representatives of Namdar and Westport Capital Partners were not immediately successful.
If the building’s current owner is unwilling to continue paying the mortgage, Namdar could move to foreclose and claim the property.
Namdar Realty Group is a private real estate investment and management firm that, on its website, claims 357 properties across 37 states that tally up to 7.2 million square feet of space. These properties are largely clustered in the Northeast.
Namdar has been an aggressive acquirer of struggling malls in the state, including the Meriden Mall, Enfield Square Mall, Crystal Mall in Waterford and Trumbull Mall. In a recent auction, the company agreed to pay $25.8 million for The Shoppes at Buckland Hills, a roughly 1.3-million-square-foot indoor shopping center in Manchester.
Goodwin Square has been through foreclosure previously.
Northland Investment Corp., which at one point was downtown Hartford’s largest landlord, acquired the office tower and an attached 124-room hotel from the state pension fund for $41 million in 2005, and then began defaulting on its mortgage in 2010.
A special servicing company foreclosed on the property in 2012 and then sold it to the current owner, Wilton-based Goodwin Square Building LLC, for $18.48 million in June 2015.
Goodwin Square Building split off and sold the hotel to a partnership of Stamford-based RMS Cos. and a partner for $5 million in 2016. RMS later bought out its partner.
Downtown Hartford has been particularly hard hit by the national downturn in the commercial office market.
Some experts estimate nearly 40% of downtown’s office space is available.
Three downtown Class A office towers – the Stilts Building, Metro Center and Constitution Plaza – are in foreclosure and have court-appointed receivers. The City Place I office tower has a court-appointed receiver without a foreclosure complaint.
Most Recent
Most Recent
0 Comments