The city of Hartford is giving one of downtown’s most prominent landlords six additional months to decide whether it plans to salvage the vacant One Talcott Plaza garage.
New York’s Shelbourne Global Solutions LLC once planned to raze the garage near Main Street by year-end as part of a tax-break deal it inked with the city. But Shelbourne now says there may be potential to repair and reopen the garage, following findings from a recent engineering study performed on the site.
On Monday, Shelbourne received near unanimous approval from the city council to extend the deadline to determine the fate of the garage until June 30. The previous agreement called for the garage to be demolished in preparation of new site construction by Dec. 31, city records show.Â
The council’s approval also requires Shelbourne to increase its planned investment at the complex, which includes vacant office space at the corner of Main and Talcott streets, to more than $10 million.Â
Shelbourne has bought more than $200 million in downtown real estate since 2014.
Earlier this year, Shelbourne was part of 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, in addition to 45,000 square feet of retail, mainly along the south side of Pratt, where Shelbourne owns much of the commercial space.
Shelbourne ran into trouble after the city’s 2016 revaluation more than doubled the taxes on three of its most prized Class A office towers downtown, including 20 and 350 Church St. and 100 Pearl St. In total, its tax bill jumped from $2.6 million to $5.4 million.
After suing the city in pursuit of new valuations, the two sides reached a settlement agreement in 2017. That deal handed Shelbourne property-tax relief on several of its downtown properties, saving them more than $1 million in the most recent tax year.
The deal also tasked Shelbourne with redeveloping One Talcott Plaza, which includes three lots at 1006 Main, 30 Talcott and 36-70 Taclott streets. Shelbourne agreed to pay back taxes on the property and invest $10 million redeveloping the site.
