🔒Large Windsor office building sells for $1.15M, targeted for apartment redevelopment

A recently sold Windsor office building is already under contract again, this time by a New Hampshire developer eyeing a large-scale residential conversion. Manchester, New Hampshire-based multifamily developer Brady Sullivan Properties is seeking to convert two adjacent office buildings at 1 and 3 Waterside Crossing. At an Aug. 12 Town Planning and Zoning Commission meeting, the company proposed a zoning regulation change that would allow the vacant 92,000-square-foot building at 1 Waterside Crossing to be converted into 87 apartments. At that meeting, attorney Carl Landolina, representing Brady Sullivan, said the developer is under contract to purchase 1 Waterside Crossing. Brady Sullivan Investment Analyst Ben Kfoury told the commission the firm is also negotiating to acquire 3 Waterside Crossing. In a deed recorded Aug. 20, the 125,152-square-foot office building at 3 Waterside Crossing sold to a limited liability company affiliated with New Jersey freight broker A&H Logistics Corp., which is now negotiating to sell the property to Brady Sullivan, according to sources familiar with the matter. Windsor Economic Development Director Patrick McMahon said Monday that Brady Sullivan has a contract to buy 3 Waterside Crossing from its new owner. “I think it makes a lot of sense to develop the two buildings at the same time, if the commission agrees,” McMahon said. “It’s a beautiful setting. The buildings are in close proximity. By working as a comprehensive plan, they might get a better layout.” Both Waterside buildings, built in the early 1980s with matching glass-and-metal facades, have been largely vacant in recent years. Their potential redevelopment coincides with Windsor’s broader effort to overhaul zoning rules to encourage the conversion of struggling office properties into housing and other uses. The Day Hill Corporate Area, Windsor’s primary office and business development corridor, has been hit hard by the shift to remote and hybrid work. Windsor’s office vacancy rate stood at 34.7% in 2019, but soared to 59.1% in the first quarter of 2024, according to CBRE. CBRE’s Anna M. Kocsondy and John McCormick were the listing agents for 3 Waterside Crossing. McCormick, an executive vice president with the firm, said the property drew multiple bidders in a Ten-X online auction in the first quarter of this year. The seller gave the winning bidder extensions to complete financing, McCormick said. Bidders were drawn by the low cost per square foot and the town’s push for more flexible zoning aimed at spurring redevelopment in the Day Hill corridor, McCormick said. “I give the Town of Windsor great accolades for getting ahead of this and trying to see what they can do with the stubbornly high vacancy rate in office properties,” McCormick said.