The Waterbury property, offered for $4.95M, is central to the city’s plans to extend downtown redevelopment into the Freight Street corridor.
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An iconic 70,545-square-foot building in downtown Waterbury that long housed the Republican-American newspaper has again been put on the market for sale after an apparent breakdown of a pending deal.
The historic, two-story building at 389 Meadow St. was listed for sale on real estate site LoopNet Tuesday morning, nearly six months after it had been taken off the market for a tentative deal.
The plan had been for an undisclosed buyer to transform the building into 38 or 40 one- and two-bedroom upscale apartments, with the first floor converted to host retailers and restaurants.
Attempts to reach the building’s ownership and Parker Benjamin, the brokerage and advisory firm representing the property, were unsuccessful.
Waterbury Economic Development Director Joseph McGrath confirmed Tuesday that he recently learned the former newspaper property would be listed for sale after the tentative deal with a development firm was called off.
Redevelopment of the 2.36-acre property is a key priority for the city.
Originally built as a passenger rail station in 1909, the "Union Station" building sits between the western edge of downtown Waterbury and a roughly 70-acre industrial area along Freight Street that the city has long hoped to redevelop as an extension of downtown, McGrath noted.
The property's transformation, and preservation, is an important piece of the city’s strategy for the Freight Street corridor, McGrath said. And so, any developer who takes on a mixed-use, transit-oriented redevelopment of the site will find an eager and energetic partner in the city, he said.
“The city will be very supportive of that particular building,” McGrath said.
Waterbury has invested millions of dollars – predominantly from state grants – in the demolition and cleanup of a roughly 22-acre industrial site along Freight Street that once housed a massive Anaconda-American Brass manufacturing complex.
The city has invested millions more in a redevelopment of the Freight Street streetscape, with new lanes, sidewalks, lighting, plantings and bicycle lanes intended to ultimately connect to a partially completed greenway alongside the Naugatuck River.
The “Union Station” building at 389 Meadow St. was designed in the Renaissance Revival style for the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad Co., according to the Society of Architectural Historians. The building’s landmark 245-foot-tall tower was completed in 1916, with a design inspired by the 14th-century Torre del Mangia in Siena, Italy.
As railroad ridership declined following World War II, the building was slated for demolition, according to the Society of Architectural Historians. The Pape family purchased it in 1952 and retrofitted the building to house its growing newspaper organization.
The building, and particularly its tower, has long been used as an emblem of Waterbury by the city, politicians and various organizations.
Today, Union Station sits along a commuter rail line running between Waterbury and Bridgeport, immediately next to a passenger train platform.
The state Department of Transportation is undertaking a $27.7 million upgrade of the passenger platform, a project expected to be completed in September 2027. The agency is also converting nearly 1,600 square feet of the former Union Station baggage area into an indoor Metro-North waiting room with 21 seats, public bathrooms, water fountains and passenger information displays, along with offices for rail employees.
The LoopNet listing describes the property as a “premier redevelopment opportunity” that is “shovel-ready.”
City officials have signed off on zoning compliance for the renovation, according to the listing. The National Park Service and State Historic Preservation Office have also approved stages of historic tax credit applications for the redevelopment.
Discussions have advanced with the Connecticut Municipal Development Authority, opening the potential for low-interest development loans.
The building housed the Republican-American newspaper and its precursor publications for more than seven decades. The Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper, with deep ties to the city and region, moved out of the building in July 2025, several months after the Pape family sold the publication to Hearst Connecticut Media.
The family-led American-Republican Inc. retained the real estate, which it listed for sale in February 2025, weeks after the newspaper's sale to Hearst. Hearst briefly leased about 10,000 square feet in the building.
The new listing renews an asking price of $4.95 million.
There is already clear signs of government interest in lining up behind redevelopment of 389 Meadow St.
The city has secured a $250,000 state grant for detailed architectural and site planning. An application for those funds approved by the city’s Board of Aldermen in 2024 estimated redevelopment costs at $12 million. The Naugatuck Valley Council of Governments has allocated another $200,000 to assess environmental cleanup needs at the site.
