It’s been a busy news year and HBJ Today has been there offering on-line readers a timely business news report each day. Here’s a look at some of the year’s top news stories as told by our writers on HBJ Today:
JANUARY
Friday is the deadline for Connecticut residents who had secret overseas accounts with Swiss bank UBS AG to come clean with state tax collectors and avoid criminal charges.
The state Department of Revenue Services’ leniency offer extends primarily to those with Connecticut tax liabilities who are among the 4,450 owners of secret accounts that UBS revealed last year to federal investigators and the IRS.
State officials stop short of calling it an “amnesty,’’ preferring to describe it as a “voluntary disclosure’’ offer. But it also covers residents with secret offshore accounts administered by other financial institutions, authorities said.
“This is a one-shot deal,’’ DRS spokesman Sarah Kaufman told HBJ Today.
Gregory Seay, Jan. 12
FEBRUARY
One year after Hartford’s lone Cadillac franchise folded, the domestic luxury brand has replanted its flag in the city.
Valenti Cadillac opened its doors two weeks ago in one of the showrooms at 99 Leibert Road, in the North Meadows, that had been part of the defunct Tony March Connecticut dealership network.
Valenti Auto Group, which has eight other domestic and European new-car dealerships in Connecticut, is becoming quite familiar with Hartford’s new-car market.
In the past three years, Valenti Auto acquired former Bill Barry Volkswagen in West Hartford (now Volkswagen of Hartford) and the city’s former Thomas Jaguar franchise (now Jaguar of Hartford).
By Gregory Seay, Feb. 15
MARCH
The city of Hartford has reached agreement on a financial-aid package to keep downtown’s ailing Hilton Hotel from closing and preserve 140 jobs.
The city council passed a resolution last month that includes providing the hotel, owned by The Waterford Group in Waterford, tax breaks and a new $7 million loan from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The proceeds of HUD loan are being paid to GE Business Financial Services Inc. in exchange for release of its $22 million mortgage on the property.
As part of the deal, the city will also convert the current air lease on the property to a ground lease on July 1, 2011. As a result, the hotel will not be subject to real property taxes, but will instead pay a base rent.
According to the Feb. 22 resolution, the Hilton would have been forced to close without the aid.
Greg Bordonaro, March 1
APRIL
Downtown Hartford office tower CityPlace I will soon gain Bank of America as a major tenant, HBJ Today has learned.
The bank’s Connecticut headquarters, which currently leases about 200,000 square feet at 777 Main St., or about half that building, will move to CityPlace I.
The terms of the new lease were not immediately available, but bank spokesman T.J. Crawford, said the move will be completed by this time next year. Bank of America’s lease at 777 Main St. is due to expire in March 2011.
Crawford said the company will occupy a total of 100,000 square feet in CityPlace I and CityPlace II, cutting its downtown Hartford footprint in half. Merrill Lynch, which is owned by Bank of America, already occupies some space in CityPlace II, he said.
Bank of America also has a full service banking center at City Place I.
Greg Bordonaro, Apr. 12
Philip R. Sherringham is out as president and CEO of regional bank operator People’s United Financial Inc., with the bank’s board effectively blaming him for moving too slowly to build up the Bridgeport lender through acquisitions.
The chairman of People’s United’s board of directors said Monday the bank needed new leadership to reach the next level.
Sherringham, 56, mutually agreed with the board to resign and will be replaced on an interim basis by John P. “Jack” Barnes, 54, who is also the company’s senior executive vice president.
The board will search inside and outside the bank for a permanent CEO.
Greg Bordonaro and Gregory Seay, Apr. 26
MAY
Michael Nuzzo and his two older brothers learned from their father, Fred, the intricacies — and hard work — involved in making Italian pies at the New Haven pizzeria he started in 1955.
All three eventually started their own restaurants. Today, a third generation of Nuzzos, Michael’s three children — ages 13, 11 and 8 — for years have spent Friday nights and Saturdays learning the business at their father’s Grand Apizza restaurant in Clinton.
That is until two weeks ago, when a Connecticut Labor Department investigator — apparently acting on an anonymous tip — showed up May 12 at the pizzeria and ordered the Nuzzo kids to stop.
Michael and Migdalia Nuzzo are suing the agency in New Haven federal court, alleging the state’s broad application of its child labor laws violates their civil rights.
“My kids don’t work. They help out,’’ Michael Nuzzo said Wednesday from his restaurant. “I just want them to leave my family alone. It’s tradition. We were raised on good family values and family tradition.’’
Gregory Seay, May 26
JUNE
Downtown Hartford’s iconic Goodwin Square office-hotel property has slipped into foreclosure as its owners have failed to make payments since January, state court records show.
Northland Investment Corp. has defaulted on its $33 million loan for Goodwin Square, the 330,901-square-foot property that includes the 30-floor office tower and historic Goodwin Hotel, which shut in December 2008.
As of June 1, 2010, the outstanding principal balance on the loan was $33 million, and Northland owes more than $1 million in interest payments and penalties, court records show.
Additionally, Northland has failed to pay more than $150,000 in real estate taxes on the property, forcing the lender to advance its own funds to cover the debt, records show.
Greg Bordonaro, June 28
JULY
Connecticut River Plaza, a one-time showcase office property in downtown Hartford, has a new owner from New York City who paid $6,666,667 for the property, city records show.
Connecticut River Plaza LLC bought the two buildings on 1.7 acres at 450 Columbus Blvd. with 556,000 square feet from Boston’s U.S. Bank N.A., according to papers filed with the Hartford City Clerk’s office.
According to Jones Lang LaSalle, the buildings’ leasing broker, FBE Limited and Cammeby’s International, owner of State House Square in downtown Hartford, are investors in the limited liability corporation that bought them.
July 23 date stamps on conveyance tax records and deed papers filed with the clerk’s office indicate the deal was closed late last week. Records indicate this may have been a cash transaction. No mortgage document tied to the property was filed with the clerk’s office.
UnitedHealthcare recently moved its Hartford operations and about 2,000 workers from Connecticut River Plaza to CityPlace, 185 Asylum St., in the heart of the city’s central business district.
The sale completes one of the most anticipated transactions in the recent history of downtown Hartford’s commercial office market.
Gregory Seay, July 26
AUGUST
NewAlliance Bancshares, one of Connecticut’s largest in-state lenders has been acquired by New York-based Niagara Financial Group, a deal which will create one of the largest 25 banks in the United States.
The merger of New Haven-based NewAlliance Bancshares, parent to NewAlliance Bank, into First Niagara will create a banking behemoth with more than $29 billion in assets. It also means the NewAlliance’s orange and blue brand will disappear in the state.
As part of the deal, which is valued at $1.5 billion, NewAlliance’s 88 branches, including one recently opened in downtown Hartford, are expected to be converted and rebranded as First Niagara locations.
Currently, First Niagara, which is based in Buffalo, serves communities across Upstate New York and Pennsylvania.
Greg Bordonaro, Aug. 19
SEPTEMBER
Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Connecticut announced today that it is moving its headquarters from North Haven to Wallingford next year, where it will lease space in the office building known as the Campus at Greenhill.
The company has signed a 10-year lease with property landlord Workstage-Connecticut, LLC for space in the 300,000-square-foot office building, located at 108 Leigus Road.
In all, Anthem will occupy 217,764 square feet of the campus.
That prime office space was built specifically for the now-defunct Mortgage Lenders Network USA Inc.
The relocation plan will be in two phases; the first occurring in Sept. 2011, and the second and final phase in Sept. 2012.
Greg Bordonaro, Sept. 14
OCTOBER
Northeast Utilities’ proposed $4.2 billion acquisition of New England gas-electric utility NStar will provide a reliable cash stream to finance billions more in upgrades to NU’s power transmission grid, an analyst says.
Hartford-based NU merger with NStar in a stock-for-stock deal would form one of the nation’s biggest utility companies.
Once complete, NU can use NStar’s cash flows to finance billions in transmissions projects, which make the power grid more reliable, help move power more easily around the region, and drive a higher return on investment, said energy analyst Maurice E. May of Power Insights-Soleil.
NStar is a Boston-based, invested-owned utility with 1.1 million electricity customers and 300,000 gas customers in 51 Massachusetts communities. Its revenues total $3 billion; its assets total $8 billion; and the company employs 3,000 people.
Brad Kane, Oct. 18
NOVEMBER
After inventorying Hartford’s parking assets and crunching the numbers, a parking panel says $100 million is the “magic number’’ that could prompt the city to hand its 6,300 covered and metered parking spaces over to a private operator for the next 50 years.
Meanwhile, the list of potential concessionaires is down to four from six, with Hartford’s LAZ Parking and ProPark still among the players.
“We’ve tried to design a proposal that puts us in that sweet spot,’’ Hartford Chief Operating Officer Dave Panagore said of the ideal upfront concession payment following a public update Tuesday night on the task force’s parking privatization initiative.
The panel has spent the past six months analyzing the potential ups and downs of handing its parking over to a long-term operator in exchange for an upfront payment.
“This is an ongoing piece of work,’’ Hartford Mayor Pedro Segarra said to open the briefing.
City officials say the aim of privatizing parking operations is to maximize parking revenues and stabilize the city finances in the short term while providing a platform for sustainable economic growth over the long-term.
Gregory Seay, Nov. 17
DECEMBER
The town of Windsor is weighing a development proposal to transform a 600-acre industrial brownfield off Day Hill Road into a $750 million village of residences and light commercial, authorities say.
Great Pond Village is the master-planned, multi-year, multi-phase development that ABB Group, owner of the former Combustion Engineering nuclear-production site, and Massachusetts developer Winstanley Enterprises say they want to develop jointly in the Hartford suburb.
Great Pond’s anchor would be a mix of some 3,500 single- and multi-family housing units aimed at a wide demographic but clustered more densely than Windsor zoning regulations presently allow, officials and town documents say.
Fully developed, it also would include about 85,000 square feet of neighborhood retail and 250,000 square feet of office and research and development space.
“It’s 95 percent a residential project,’’ said Adam Winstanley, a Concord, Mass., commercial landlord with properties in the Hartford area and New Haven. He puts the completed size of Great Pond at 620 acres, while town documents list 670 acres — 250 of which would be park land and open space.
Town Manager Peter Souza said about 20,000 people commute daily from outside Windsor to the Day Hill Road corridor — a three-mile long, mile-wide strip from exit 38 on Interstate 91 to the edge of Bloomfield — to work at such employers as Hartford Life, ING, Cigna, Konica-Minolta, Alstom and Westinghouse.
Gregory Seay, Dec. 7
