There may be life for downtown Hartford’s One Talcott Plaza garage after all.
New York’s Shelbourne Global LLC, one of downtown’s most prominent landlords which was on the hook to demolish the garage near Main Street by the end of this year as part of a tax-break deal it hatched with the city, now says there is potential to repair and reopen the garage based on recent engineering studies it had performed on the property.
Shelbourne is asking the city council for permission to extend the deadline to determine the fate of the garage until next June. Originally, it had to demolish the garage and prepare the site for future development by Dec. 31, 2019, city records show.
As part of the request, Shelbourne said it would also increase its planned investment downtown to above $10 million.
The city council is scheduled to consider voting on the new agreement Monday.
Shelbourne has made a splash in downtown Hartford in recent years having purchased more than $200 million in downtown real estate, including some of the city’s most prized Class A office towers.
Most recently, Shelbourne was among a trio of landlord-developers to propose a $100 million residential-commercial redevelopment linking Trumbull and Main streets, via the Pratt Street retail corridor. That project proposes to create 375 new apartments and townhomes, plus 45,000 square feet of retail, mainly along the south side of Pratt, where Shelbourne owns much of the commercial space.
The group last month secured $12 million in loans from the quasi-public Capital Region Development Authority (CRDA) for the project.
Shelbourne has been bullish on Hartford ever since its first $44 million purchase of the Stilts Building (20 Church St.) in 2014.
However, Shelbourne ran into problems a few years ago, following the city’s 2016 revaluation, which more than doubled the taxes on three of its Class A office towers: 20 and 350 Church St. and 100 Pearl St. The combined tax bill on all three properties grew from $2.6 million to $5.4 million.
Shelbourne sued the city over the new valuations, but eventually came to a settlement agreement in 2017. The deal provided Shelbourne property-tax relief by reducing assessments for a set period on several of its downtown Hartford properties, saving it more than $1 million in the most recent tax year.
As part of that agreement, Shelbourne agreed to step in as redeveloper of the vacant One Talcott Plaza — comprising three parcels known as 1006 Main, 30 Talcott and 36-70 Taclott streets — in place of Hartford parking magnate Alan Lazowski, who owned and tried unsuccessfully to redevelop the site since 2011.
Shelbourne agreed to pay the city $3.1 million in back taxes on One Talcott Plaza, which includes a vacant office building and parking garage at the corner of Main and Talcott streets, and invest $10 million in development projects.
It also agreed to demolish the Talcott Plaza garage, adjacent to the Morgan Street Garage, and prepare the site for future development.
