Ground has broken on a $7 million renovation of the 90-unit M.D. Fox Manor elderly housing complex in Hartford’s South End.
Enterprise Builders Inc. of Newington is contractor for the project at 461 Washington St., at the corner of New Britain Avenue. Rhode Island’s Dimeo Properties is landlord.
Renovations for are set for completion in summer 2015.
Because the more than a century-old Romanesque-Renaissance Revival style edifice, with brownstone and masonry facades, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, a portion of the project funding will come from the sale of state and federal historic tax credits.
The former M.D. Fox Elementary School building was converted into subsidized elderly housing in 1982 after a new Fox school opened nearby at Maple Avenue and Benton Street.
The schoolhouse and manor are named for innovative, early 20th-century Hartford schools superintendent Michael D. Fox, who at one time was a principal at the original schoolhouse.
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$1M med-office sale
A 6,300-square-foot medical building in Glastonbury has sold for just over $1 million, brokers say.
Investors Gary Schulman and Magdalena Tauber paid sellers William and Margarette Vacek $1.04 million for the building and its 2.46 acres at 371-379 Naubuc Ave.
The building will soon be the new location for Glastonbury’s Smiles for the Future Pediatric Dentistry and Orthodontics, currently housed at 49 Welles St.
O,R&L Commercial represented the sellers; Murray Real Estate the buyers.
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Pathways’ new schoolhouse
Students and instructors are settling into their new, $38 million Pathways Academy of Technology and Design school building on Goodwin College’s East Hartford campus.
The 80,812-square-foot building at 2 Pent Road has capacity for 400 students. Amenities include a robotics laboratory, nano-tech laboratory, virtual-reality simulator and a sound-recording studio.
Hartford’s Amenta Emma Architects was designer. FIP Construction of Farmington was contractor.
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Episcopals’ Meriden digs
The Episcopal Church in Connecticut is moving its common office and meeting space from Hartford to 11,236 square feet in the Meriden Enterprise Center located at 290 Pratt Street in Meriden.
The bishops and more than 20 full- and part-time church staffers will move into the office at 290 Pratt St. in mid-April, opening to the public on April 28.
The diocese said its new home in the historic mill building offers a central location in the state, with quick access to major freeways, ample free parking, and is fully handicapped accessible — amenities not fully available at the Hartford location in the city’s West End.
It will also serve as a central place for Episcopalians from across the state to convene. The church (also known as the Diocese of Connecticut) entered into a long-term lease agreement at the end of December 2013 and expects to move its 20+ full- and part-time employees in mid-April, opening publicly on April 28.
 Duo Dickinson Architect of Madison designed the interior space. Colliers International represented landlord 290 Pratt Street LLC. Goman + York Property Advisors LLC represented the Diocese of Connecticut.
The historic mill building at 290 Pratt Street harkens to Connecticut’s past as a manufacturing hub.n
Greg Seay is the Hartford Business Journal News Editor.
