With local approvals and a branding plan in hand, developers Avner Krohn and Brian Zelman are set to break ground this spring on a 111-unit upscale apartment complex on Jolley Drive in Bloomfield.
Krohn, of New Britain’s Jasko Development, and Zelman, of West Hartford’s Zelman Real Estate, said in a recent interview that they’ve named the project The Residences at Wash Brook, after one of several nearby brooks at the 20-acre site located midway between Routes 178 and 218.
While the two partners have worked together in the past, including on a recently completed Jolley Drive medical building, Wash Brook is their first multifamily collaboration.
Fresh project renderings show a two-story atrium with a mezzanine just inside the entrance to the four-story building.
“It’s not a massive building, it has kind of a boutique hotel feel,” said Krohn, who has been one of New Britain’s more active developers in recent years.
Krohn and Zelman declined to disclose the project price tag and said it was too early to reveal asking rents. They did say Wash Brook will offer six different unit layouts at market rates, ranging from studios up to three-bedrooms.
The development is targeting young professionals and empty-nesters alike.
There will be a gym, yoga studio, pool, pet grooming stations, golf and sports simulator, bicycle storage, shared office area, covered parking ports, electric vehicle chargers, a smart door access system, and other amenities.
“I don’t think you can build 111 units that are higher end and not have those things or else your competition knocks you out,” Zelman said of the planned amenities. “It’s kind of a given that you have to have them.”
The developers applied for and received town approvals for the project last year after the COVID-19 pandemic struck Connecticut. The coronavirus had minimal impact on the project’s design, though Zelman and Krohn made sure to include nooks or other spaces inside the apartments that can be used as workstations for tenants who telecommute. They also beefed up the size of the shared business center on the ground floor.
The two hope that when units begin leasing by the summer or fall of 2022 the pandemic will be in the rearview mirror.
“It’s about a 15-month timeline from the start of construction, so we’re kind of anticipating that things will be different or, I hate to say, ‘back to normal’ when we start tenanting the building,” Zelman said.
