A pair of West Hartford development proposals would expand market-rate housing in Bishops Corner and add a new convenience store across town, in the New Park/Flatbush Avenue neighborhood.
In Bishops Corner, developer David Raisner wants to erect 10, tri-level townhouses adjacent to an existing 12-unit apartment complex at 747 N. Main St., behind McDonald’s Plaza.
Raisner’s DR North Main Street LLC proposal is in the earliest stages of the town’s land-use review and approval chain, with, until recently, members of its Design & Review Committee and Raisner’s architectural-engineering advisers still haggling over some of the project’s final design elements.
Raisner already has agreed to scale his project down from an original 14 units to 10 — two – and three-bedroom units, sized 1,650 square feet to 2,100 square feet — to address the committee’s initial site-density concerns. Extra parking spaces also were added and landscaping elements were beefed up.
Raisner said he holds an option to acquire the existing 1 ½-acre parcel with the apartments built in 1961 from a family trust that owns it. The new units would rest on 0.68 acres of the tract currently zoned for a maximum eight multifamily units, he said.
Pricing for the new townhomes has not yet been set, he said.
Also before the design-review panel is the Cumberland Farms convenience-store chain’s proposal for a retail-store/gas station at 467 New Park Ave., at the corner of Flatbush Avenue.
Tagged as a “gateway” into West Hartford from Hartford, the Cumberland Farms site would sit on property that formerly housed Faxon Engineering as well as a pair of neighboring dwellings directly across the street from a station on the CTFastrak commuter busway. Opposite that is a Shell convenience store-gas station. The vacant Faxon building and multifamily houses-cum office buildings would be razed to make way for the retail store, town officials said.
According to Cumberland Farm’s design schematics, the proposed West Hartford store would closely resemble one that opened last summer in Glastonbury, at 2875 Main St.
There it built a 4,158-square-foot structure, with fuel dispensers updated with Cumberland’s green-blue-and-white logos.
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Brickenmore’s home
The central Connecticut producer of bricks made from horse manure has recently relocated to a larger owned facility in East Windsor from a leased facility in Ellington.
Brickenmore LLC bought and last May moved into its 40,000-square-foot production facility at 9 Thompson Road. It previously was housed in a 4,000-square-foot building at 306 Industrial Park Road, in the Ellington Industrial Park, owner Michael Richey said. Pricetag for the new building wasn’t disclosed.
Occupying the larger building enabled the company to boost production volume 20 fold, Richey said.
Brickenmore has 28 employees who make and market its bricks, fire starters and fire scents to Connecticut and New England retailers, including Geissler’s Supermarkets, Stew Leonard’s and Agway, plus a growing number of Midwest retailers, he said.
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RI lender’s Darien office
Rhode Island real estate lender Washington Trust has opened a second Connecticut mortgage-production office in Darien, to go with one in Glastonbury.
The office at 1025 Boston Post Road is managed by Executive Vice President James L. Gueltzow, who oversees a three-person staff: Darlene B. Lee; Kevin L. Kinahan; and George H. Zygmont.
Its Glastonbury office is at 180 Glastonbury Blvd.
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Pig Rig BBQ space
A 1,500-square-foot storefront in Wallingford’s Yale Plaza has been leased for an anchored version of the Pig Rig BBQ food truck.
Press/Cuozzo Commercial Services brokered the lease at 950 Yale Ave. between New England Concessions and landlord 950 Yale Avenue LLC.
New England Concessions will continue its food-truck operation, brokers say.
Deal Watch wants to hear from you. E-mail it, along with contact information to: gseay@HartfordBusiness.com. Greg Seay is the Hartford Business Journal News Editor.
