The Capitol Region Education Council recently began leasing 14,000 square feet of office space in the mammoth Atrium at Gillette Ridge building in Bloomfield.
CREC provides education training, consulting, management and other services for 36 municipalities in Greater Hartford. It is currently moving an educator training program into what had been a conference center in the 548,301-square-foot office building.
That Atrium was originally built for insurer Cigna in 1982 at a cost of about $130 million. Cigna sold the building to MetLife in 2007 for $50 million. The property was sold again in late 2021, this time for $10.4 million, to a limited liability company represented by investors Harry Tawil and Jeffrey Chera.
Tawil and Chera have spent millions more on repairs and upgrades, focusing heavily on amenities. They’ve recruited a café for the lobby, built a games room and outdoor fire pits, refurbished a fitness center and more.
CREC Executive Director Greg J. Florio said his organization picked the Atrium because the space is a good fit, and available. The space will house CREC’s Montessori Training Center Northeast.
This educator training program lost its home at the former Hartford College for Women after the University of Hartford sold the 10.4-acre Asylum Avenue campus for $1 million last March.
The Montessori program next moved to space CREC leased for another program in Hartford’s Colt Gateway complex. It has been there for several months.
CREC will base eight to 10 people associated with the Montessori program at the Atrium, but groups as large as 80 will visit for training, with larger crowds concentrated in the summer, Florio said.
CREC has signed an eight-year-lease at the Atrium, with options to extend for up to 10 years, according to Tawil and Chera.
Tawil said efforts to build a new conference center will begin within days.
