A family investment team from Mystic recently paid $1.92 million for a roughly 124-year-old, 14-unit apartment building in downtown New Britain.
“I think overall, New Britain is an up-and-coming downtown area,” said 30-year-old Warren Lorenz, of Boston, principal of the limited liability company that bought the “Rao Building” at 160 Main St. “The area has a lot of opportunity for growth.”
Lorenz is partnered in the deal, which closed this month, with his brother, 33-year-old Kent Lorenz, of East Lyme, and their parents, Perry and Felicia Lorenz, of Mystic.
This acquisition brings the family portfolio up to 105 apartment units in Connecticut and Providence, Warren Lorenz said.
Prolific developer Avner Krohn acquired the five-story, 16,406-square-foot Rao Building from the city of New Britain in 2007 and converted the upper floors from office space to apartments.
He then sold the property in 2019 for $2.07 million to a limited liability company headed by Miriam Gable, of New York.
Lorenz said his family plans to renovate and refresh the building.
“We want to make it so when you walk through the doors, everything feels brand new, inside and out,” Lorenz said.
Lorenz said his family is exploring additional purchases in New Britain. He said he’s confident in the vision of city leadership and the trajectory of its downtown, especially given several new large multifamily developments Krohn is pursuing downtown.
The sale was brokered by Sandy Strickling and Anne-Marie Dube of West Hartford-based Sky Realty Group. Strickling represented the seller and Dube the buyer.
Strickling said the property was under contract for about seven months. The biggest challenge, she said, was a first-floor liquor store tenant that would not commit to a lease renewal. That led to a last-minute renegotiation and price drop.
Strickling put the property’s capitalization rate at about 5.5%.
“It just shows the strength of the downtown New Britain area,” Strickling said. “The in-place cap rate was relatively low, but the buyers see what is happening in the city of New Britain and they will be renovating. It just shows how strong the marketplace has become.”
