🔒Downtown Hartford’s Stark Building rebounds as small tenants drive leasing activity

Stark Office Suites paid $4.3 million for a prominent, 17-story office tower in downtown Hartford in 2017, marking the company’s first property acquisition and pushing its small office suite leasing business beyond New York. In the Empire State, Stark leases space, fits it out and subleases it to small companies. The 130,547-square-foot office tower at 750 Main St. — originally built in 1922 for the Hartford Trust Co. — was the company’s first, and so far only, venture into ownership. Adam Stark, president of Stark Office Suites, said the building’s historic character and central downtown location were key factors in the purchase. Then COVID-19 hit, accelerating remote work and battering office markets nationwide. Occupancy at the Stark Building fell from 78% to below 60%. In the years since, the building has regained ground, with occupancy climbing from 58.5% to 72.5% over the past two years. The recovery, Stark and other experts say, reflects a narrower slice of today’s office demand: smaller tenants seeking flexible, move-in-ready suites, even as much of Hartford’s downtown office market continues to face elevated vacancies and weak demand for larger blocks of space. NAI Lexington Commercial, which handles leasing at the Stark building, has helped secure 18 tenants, including a security firm, law offices and nonprofit organizations, most occupying less than 2,000 square feet, said Kevin Kenny, president of the brokerage. “There are just so many folks who had larger office footprints who were looking for something centrally located where they could downsize a bit,” Kenny said. Stark said leasing momentum has been supported by the building’s quality condition, flexible suite sizes and lease terms, as well as brokerage efforts. “There’s all of these different factors that come into play,” Stark said.

More street-level activity

Downtown Hartford’s office vacancy rate has improved incrementally since the pandemic, even as it remains stubbornly high. According to Cushman & Wakefield’s fourth-quarter 2025 market report, vacancies in the central business district’s roughly 7.6 million square feet of office space stood at 31.9% at the close of last year, down about a percentage point from the year-ago period. That’s much higher than Greater Hartford’s 20.4% overall vacancy rate. Even still, leasing activity picked up last year, with demand in downtown Hartford increasing more than 75% year over year. Total annual leasing across the Greater Hartford market reached 609,000 square feet in 2025, a 14.3% increase from 2024, with higher-tier Class A properties accounting for nearly 68% of deals, Cushman and Wakefield said. City and state officials have directed significant resources toward downtown in recent years in an effort to strengthen the district. State-backed, low-interest loans distributed by the Capital Region Development Authority have supported the creation of more than 3,300 new apartments over the past 12 years. The downtown PeoplesBank Arena is undergoing a $145 million renovation, and the city has used federal pandemic-relief funds to support the creation and expansion of restaurants and shops. Stark and other downtown property owners say they have seen more street-level activity in recent months as some employers require workers to spend more time in the office.

Jolie Swanson, who runs tax, accounting and payroll service firms headquartered in the Stark Building, said she has noticed more activity downtown — including fuller parking garages. For the first couple years after moving into the building in 2021, Swanson said she could typically find a parking space on the second or third levels of a nearby garage. Now, she said, later arrivals often have to park higher up. “That’s the joke, you know, get in early and you don’t have to go all the way to the top of the parking garage,” Swanson said. Swanson operates three businesses — Accounting Connections LLC, Payroll Connections LLC and TaxAbility LLC — from the sixth floor of the Stark Building. She relocated from East Hartford, citing access for employees traveling statewide and proximity to restaurants, public transportation and other amenities. Since moving, Swanson said her full-time staff has grown from five to 16, with seasonal hires pushing headcount to about 25 during tax season. She began with about 1,500 square feet and now occupies roughly 4,500 square feet, with plans to expand further. Swanson said the ability to lease a smaller space and grow over time was a key factor in choosing the building. Other downtown properties required larger minimum footprints of 2,500 to 5,000 square feet, she said. “I think that more businesses really need to understand that Hartford has so much to offer the small business community,” Swanson said.

Former tenant returns after renovations

Craig Clark, founder of small business lenders General Merchant Funding and GM Funding, moved his main office and 10 employees to the 12th floor of the Stark Building about a year ago. His prior downtown office on Trumbull Street was vacated for conversion to apartments. Clark’s businesses also operate in New Britain, Texas, Florida and the Philippines.

“I looked at pretty much every place downtown,” Clark said. “A lot of them are dated … . And the couple that are updated, the pricing is just not basically affordable for what I think downtown should be, because I’ve been here a long time.” Clark previously leased space at 750 Main St. in 2009 before relocating to newer offices elsewhere downtown. After acquiring the property in 2017, Stark Office Suites invested more than $2 million in renovations, including elevator work, HVAC upgrades and a remodeled lobby. “Yeah, we had been here previously, but it didn’t look the way it looks now,” Clark said. “It definitely got renovated, so that was a good thing.”