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Today closes the books on 2019, a year of ups and downs for real estate in Connecticut. Here are the five real estate stories that you, our readers, read the most this year:
- Greenwich Mansion Sells for Half Asking Price – The sale of 110 Clapboard Ridge Road was likely the town’s largest real estate deal of the year. But its owners seriously marked the 16,863-square-foot Georgian mansion down from $35 million to $17.5 million in an effort to find a buyer. It was a pattern that repeated itself elsewhere on the Gold Coast as big homes on big lots far away from town centers and train stations drew reduced interest from a new generation of buyers.
- West Hartford Apartments Sell for $12.2M – Canadian firm Capital American Realty Partners Corp. entered into a joint venture with CS Acquisition Group, which owns 11 multifamily properties in Hartford, Granby, Meriden and New Britain, to purchase two buildings in West Hartford for $143 per square foot. While the buildings themselves weren’t large, the deal was part of a gradual upturn in Greater Hartford’s fortunes, fed in part by the conclusion of a court case that had bottled up development near downtown, a growing network of distribution centers that are turning the area into a e-commerce hub, new transit-oriented developments and new investments in and near the city’s downtown.
- Vineyard Vines HQ Sells for $33.5M – Rubenstein Partners, sold Stamford’s 91,040-square-foot 181 Harbor Drive to a joint venture between The Melohn Group and Drake Street Partners. The sale, and others, could be a sign the city’s business districts are on the upswing after years of softness.
- Four Malls Lose Tenants as Retailers File for Bankruptcy – Milford’s Connecticut Post Mall and the Westfield Meriden, along with the Danbuy Fair and Stamford Town Center malls, lost national retailers this year as conditions worsened for brick-and-mortar firms unable to adapt to e-commerce competition. Despite these trends, owners of Stamford Town Center said they are optimistic their property will fetch a good price as they put it up for sale.
- 269 Units for New Haven After Projects OK’d – Two buildings, one on the corner of Orange and Chapel streets downtown, the other in the Hill-to-Downtown neighborhood near the city’s MetroNorth train station, will help fill in key gaps in New Haven’s streetscape. They are but a few of the market-rate or mostly-market-rate multifamily projects approved in the city this year. In addition to the booming multifamily sector, state officials hinted they would be willing to invest public money to solve the city’s shortage of lab space needed to turn its growing biotech scene into a bigger growth engine.
