Avon-based affordable housing developer Honeycomb Real Estate Partners recently paid $4.2 million for a shuttered Wallingford nursing home it plans to convert into affordable apartments.
The 1974-vintage, 62,160-square-foot building on 11.5 acres at 55 Kondracki Lane had previously operated as the 180-bed Quinnipiac Valley Center skilled nursing facility. It closed in February 2022 after state health inspectors found life-threatening violations.
Genesis Healthcare sold the property to a Florida-based developer with ties to Wallingford for $1.6 million in 2023.
In a deed recorded July 13, the property was sold again, this time to Honeycomb, a busy affordable housing developer.
Honeycomb Managing Principal Lewis Brown said the company has partnered with Montagno Construction to convert the building into 66 affordable apartments for households earning 60% of the area median income or less. Montagno is investing in the project and serving as general contractor.
Construction is expected to cost approximately $14 million and take 11 to 12 months to complete, Brown said.
Brown said the adaptive-reuse project will transform a blighted, vacant property while helping Wallingford expand its affordable housing inventory, which represents 4.37% of the town’s housing stock. Municipalities where at least 10% of the housing stock is classified as affordable are generally exempt from the state’s affordable housing appeals law.
The project is being funded in part with federal low-income housing tax credits and financing from Liberty Bank, the Connecticut Department of Housing and Connecticut Housing Finance Authority.
Brown also noted strong cooperation from Wallingford officials.
“You need the partnership of both state and local government in order for these developments to work,” Brown said Friday.
