Prominent real estate investor Mark Greenberg financed his recent $7.5 million purchase of a 457,396-square-foot Windsor office building with a bank loan and proceeds from the sale of another office property. Greenberg secured a $5.62 million mortgage from Griswold-based Jewett City Savings Bank to acquire 1 Griffin Road North, a massive office building developed in […]
Prominent real estate investor Mark Greenberg financed his recent $7.5 million purchase of a 457,396-square-foot Windsor office building with a bank loan and proceeds from the sale of another office property.
Greenberg secured a $5.62 million mortgage from Griswold-based Jewett City Savings Bank
to acquire 1 Griffin Road North, a massive office building developed in 2007 for roughly $150 million.
He also used $3.3 million in proceeds from his December sale of the vacant office building on 5.5 acres at 20 Security Drive, and neighboring vacant 6-acre property in Avon through a Section 1031 tax-deferred exchange.
Jewett City Savings Bank President and CEO Michael L. Alberts said the loan reflects the bank's diversified commercial lending portfolio, which now includes limited exposure to office properties.
The bank remains focused on multifamily, hospitality and commercial-and-industrial lending in eastern Connecticut and Rhode Island while expanding its presence in central Connecticut, Alberts said.
The financing of 1 Griffin Road North does not represent a significant change in the bank's conservative lending strategy, Alberts added.
The $7.5 million purchase price represents a steep discount from the property's roughly $150 million development cost in 2007. Greenberg said he intends to keep the building as office space, betting demand will strengthen as competing properties are converted to housing or removed from the market.
His recent sale of an office property in Avon illustrates that trend. Boston-based Beacon Communities is moving ahead with plans to build 100 apartments on the vacant site and convert the existing office building into 76 residential units. The company is also under contract to buy additional adjacent acreage from Greenberg.
Greenberg said Jewett City Savings Bank has financed several of his previous projects.
"It's a good savings and loan, a boutique savings and loan," Greenberg said.
At the same time, Greenberg said he is selling smaller office properties to focus on larger opportunities. Properties for sale include:
- A 26,177-square-foot, 1979-vintage office building on 7 acres at 4 Tower Drive in Wallingford.
- A 32,708-square-foot, 2001-vintage office building on 10.46 acres at 765 Straits Turnpike in Middlebury.
- A 45,506-square-foot, 1988-vintage office building on 5 acres at 525 Brook St. in Rocky Hill.
- An 83,064-square-foot, 1987-vintage office building on 19.2 acres at 100 Roscommon Drive in Middletown.
- A 42,880-square-foot, 1980-vintage office building on 2.6 acres at 60 Hartland St. in East Hartford.
- A 42,170-square-foot, 1989-vintage office building on 6.2 acres at 1095 Day Hill Road in Windsor.
- A 106,568-square-foot, 2005-vintage commercial building on 49 acres at 1001 Day Hill Road. The building blends retail, restaurant and entertainment uses, with the Dudleytown Brewing Co. among its most prominent tenants.
- Greenberg is also trying to sell 295 acres of undeveloped land off Reservoir Road in Goshen.
