🔒Cloud Co.-Pennrose partnership reshapes affordable housing across CT

On paper, The Cloud Co. hardly looks like a powerhouse. The Hartford-based real estate development firm has only three employees. Yet, over the past 13 years, this modest outfit — guided by Sanford “Sandy” Cloud Jr. and supported by a long-standing partnership with national affordable housing giant Pennrose — has helped create 599 apartments across Connecticut. The partners have completed nine projects in Hartford, Torrington, New Britain and Meriden. Most were components of larger, multiphase developments. Some sites are fully built out, while others still have phases pending. Pennrose and Cloud have another 240 apartments across five projects in various stages of construction. “We are long-term partners and we enjoy working with each other,” said 81-year-old Sanford “Sandy” Cloud Jr., chairman and CEO of The Cloud Co. “Our long-term intent is to continue working together.”

A distinguished career

Cloud, a Hartford native, built a career in politics and business that forged key relationships and expertise before launching his namesake company in 2005 at age 60. Cloud graduated from Howard University in 1966, where he served as student body president and worked as a research assistant in the office of U.S. Sen. Thomas Dodd. Three years later, he earned his law degree from Howard University School of Law. He later became the first African American attorney hired by law firm Robinson+Cole and went on to serve two terms in the Connecticut Senate, where he sponsored legislation establishing the state Department of Housing and helped advance broader housing policy reforms. In 1978, Cloud joined Aetna, eventually spending six years leading the health insurer’s community development work. He became the first African American to head the National Conference for Community Justice in 1994, a role that took him to New York City for a decade. Cloud returned to Hartford in late 2004 and the next year launched The Cloud Co. with his twin sons, Adam and Christopher. (Adam left in 2011 after being elected Hartford’s city treasurer; Anthony Healis Sr., a retired Hartford Fire Department captain and family cousin, joined the firm in 2014.) The Cloud Co.’s inaugural project was converting the former 11,400-square-foot University Club building on Lewis Street into office space, part of which the firm still occupies. The Cloud family soon began pursuing larger projects, inspired in part by the Hartford Housing Authority’s effort to find a developer to overhaul two deteriorated public housing complexes — including Westbrook Village, where Sandy Cloud grew up. Cloud said he was advised to propose a “transformational” redevelopment and to partner with a more experienced developer.

Following that guidance, he visited major redevelopment sites in Atlanta, New York and Washington, D.C. During that process, a New York developer suggested he contact Pennrose. Pennrose staff brought Cloud to see affordable housing projects the company had completed in Philadelphia and New Jersey. He said he was impressed by the quality of the work and by the company’s values, particularly its commitment to gathering neighborhood input during the design phase. “I came away from there with a really good feeling that maybe we had found our potential national partner, because we wanted someone with really deep experience … and resources,” Cloud said. At the time, Pennrose had no Connecticut projects and only a limited New England presence. The Cloud Co. provided Pennrose with a knowledgeable, well-connected entry point into the state.

“As a developer we can’t be from everywhere,” Pennrose CEO Timothy I. Henkel said. “So, one of the best ways for us to come to know different territories and regions and states is to see it through a relationship with a partner.”

Persistence pays off

An initial bid from Cloud and Pennrose for the Hartford Housing Authority projects failed. Other potential early projects eyed by the pair also fell through. The partners’ first major win came with Jefferson Heights, a 70-unit affordable senior housing development in New Britain. Completed in 2013, the project was funded with a mix of low-income housing tax credits, developer equity and grants from the city and state. “Slowly, we started to hit some signals and develop a presence,” Henkel said. A two-phase, mixed-income development in Meriden followed. Seventy-five apartments were completed in 2018 and 76 more the following year. Meanwhile, the Hartford Housing Authority reopened the bidding for the 40-acre Westbrook Village redevelopment and ultimately selected the Pennrose/Cloud proposal. A ceremonial groundbreaking was celebrated in June 2019. “It’s a great feeling, serving the community in which I was born and raised,” Cloud said. Cloud’s family moved to Westbrook Village in 1952, when he was 8. They were one of the first families to move into what, at the time, was a newly built community. For Cloud, it was a “wonderful” place to grow up. He learned to play basketball on the Westbrook courts. He pitched for a Little League team drawn from the complex. He fished in, and skated on, the nearby Park River — known to locals then as “Hog River.” By the time the Pennrose/Cloud team was picked to redevelop the Westbrook Village site, much of the complex had fallen into extreme disrepair. Only about a quarter of the 360 apartments were inhabited. The Pennrose/Cloud team has since demolished Westbrook Village’s 80 buildings and completed the first five phases of the redevelopment, adding 318 units. Another 77 units in two additional phases are nearing completion. The developers are also seeking commercial tenants for a planned 100,000-square-foot retail component along Albany Avenue, where they hope to land a grocery store as the anchor, Cloud said.

Busy pace

Cloud and Pennrose continue to advance new development efforts across Connecticut. In May, the partners began a $52.8 million redevelopment of two vacant, century-old former state office buildings in downtown Hartford, just off Bushnell Park near The Bushnell Performing Arts Center and state Capitol. The project is slated for completion in early 2027 and will create 104 apartments, including 21 designated as “affordable.” It took nearly four years to assemble a financing package for the redevelopment, resulting in a mix of public and private funding, developer equity and multiple grants. KeyBank provided a $9.5 million loan. In late October, the two companies broke ground on another major project: an approximately $80 million development on a 7-acre former industrial site in downtown Naugatuck. Plans call for 180 apartments and 7,000 square feet of commercial space. A second, 45-unit phase is also in the pipeline.

Pennrose has created a New England-focused development team in recent years, but Henkel said the company expects its collaboration with The Cloud Co. to continue into the foreseeable future. While Pennrose often partners with local firms when entering new markets, its relationship with Cloud stands out for its longevity. Elements of loyalty and friendship help cement the partnership, Henkel said, and The Cloud Co. continues to play a significant role in their joint work. “They are still longer experienced in Connecticut than we will ever be,” Henkel said. “And there’s real capacity there. They are not a big company, but they know what they are doing, and we really rely on one another in really positive ways. We believe in our history together, and I think that has resulted in a commitment to our future together.”