A $5 million medical office building under construction on Wethersfield’s Silas Deane Highway is getting attention for literally being a home-grown real estate project.
Not only will the single-story, 19,205-square-foot structure be Hartford Medical Group’s latest outpatient treatment annex, it is an example of a property packaged and marketed locally to Connecticut investors whose financing comes from an in-state lender.
The building also is remarkable for its “fast track’’ construction pace — completion is set for December, about three months shorter than the typical construction timetable, officials said. Ground broke about a month ago, and in another month the building’s steel skeleton will be in place.
The site at 1025 Silas Deane Highway, adjacent to the Wethersfield Shopping Center, previously was the location of an aging, 1960s-era office building. The Hartford Medical site is west of the shopping center, adjacent to Webster Bank. Hartford Medical Group is an affiliate of Hartford Hospital.
In need of an expensive refurbishment, the building was razed in January 2007 “with the hope and idea that the highest and best use would be office and retail,’’ said landlord Steven Neiditz, whose family built, owned and operated the office building and shopping center, among other Hartford area properties.
Neiditz said he shopped the former office building tract to “all kinds of big-box retailers’’ — he declined to name them — but the courtship ended when the bottom fell out of the retail market.
Then, an investor group approached Neiditz about a long-term ground lease to build the structure in which Hartford Medical Group will be the lead tenant.
O,R&L Commercial is the leasing agent for the medical building, which will house primary care, urgent care and physical therapy facilities. It also will have space that is shared by practitioners who regularly rotate into the site to care for outpatients.
O,R&L also assembled the Connecticut investors, 1025 Silas Deane LLC, that will own the structure, said Jay Morris, managing director. O,R&L’s sister company, O,R&L Construction Corp., is the general contractor.
Castle Bank of Meriden provided the project’s short- and long-term financing.
“It’s exciting to see new projects going up these days,’’ Morris said.
Neiditz, president and CEO of M.J. Neiditz Co. Inc., based in West Hartford, sees an extra benefit to his shopping center from a medical building nearby.
Aside from being outpatients of Hartford Medical, Neiditz sees them as potential traffic for the Friendly’s restaurant, TJ Maxx and Bed Bath & Beyond store that are among the nearly three dozen retail tenants in the shopping center.
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Martocchio’s New Home
Martocchio Music paid $390,000 for a Simsbury office building that will house its music school.
Formerly based in Avon, Martocchio in March bought the 3,160-square-foot building at 1 Massaco St., next to Simsbury Town Hall, from Luv Monkey Il LLC.
Prudential Connecticut Realty Commercial Brokerage in Avon and Correia Commercial Real Estate represented Martocchio in the transaction. RLM Co. represented the seller.
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Greg Seay is the Hartford Business Journal Web editor.
