Late last year the Hartford Courant lost its longtime leased headquarters space on Broad Street.
Now the nation’s oldest continuously published newspaper’s former home is for sale.
The 289,392-square-foot office and industrial property at 285 Broad St. was listed for sale this week for $6 million, according to CoStar. It’s also available for lease, according to listing broker CBRE.
The property’s current owner, according to city records, is 285 Broad Street Hartford LLC, which is controlled by Twenty Lake Equities LLC, according to state records.
Twenty Lake Equities lists a New York City address with the state (885 3rd Avenue, New York, New York), which is the same home to hedge fund Alden Global Capital, which is in the process of fully acquiring Courant parent Tribune Publishing.
A similarly named company — Twenty Lake Holdings — is an Alden Global subsidiary, according to published media reports, and is a major buyer and holder of U.S. newspaper real estate assets. Twenty Lake Equities and Twenty Lake Holdings share the same principal, Joseph Miller.
Twenty Lake Equities acquired the Broad Street property in 2018 for $6.9 million from Tribune Real Estate Holdings LLC, city records show.
Earlier this year Alden Global announced it had reached an agreement to acquire Tribune Publishing, which owns several metropolitan daily newspapers including The Hartford Courant.
Alden, which is known for aggressive cost cutting, had owned nearly 32% of the company, but is now slated to become the sole owner of the publications as part of a deal valued at $630 million.
The Courant abandoned the Broad Street building in December and announced its newsroom and other staff would work remotely on a permanent basis. Staff had been working remotely during the pandemic.
That move came on the heels of an announcement in October that the Courant would shut down its Broad Street printing operation and outsource its printing to the Springfield Republican in Massachusetts.
FOX-61 is still a tenant in the property and occupies 53,457 square feet of office and studio production space.
