🔒West Hartford poised for apartment, mixed-use building boom

When Sami Abunasra acquired the former Puritan Furniture Store on New Britain Avenue in the Elmwood section of West Hartford in 2020, he originally planned to use the site only for furniture retail, as an addition to the Ashley HomeStore locations he owns and operates in Manchester and Newington.

But the longer he looked at plans for the address, and the more he spoke with town officials about how they would like to see the area develop, Abunasra came around to the idea of building a mixed-use residential and commercial project, in which his store would serve as a tenant.

The area is more affordable than most of the town, demand for housing is high and the town government is in the process of laying out a transit-oriented development district to support growth in the area — all reasons, he said, to jump onboard and join the rush of other housing and mixed-use developments that appear to be cropping up all over West Hartford.

“The future is really looking bright,” Abunasra said. “[Elmwood] is the hottest part of town, in terms of affordability and potential.”

It’s getting harder these days to find a major stretch of road in West Hartford where an apartment or mixed-use project hasn’t been proposed or is already in the works.

While construction is nothing new for a community widely considered one of the most desirable in the region and the state in general, local officials, investors and builders seem to sense a new wave of development momentum building, as vacant or underused parcels along or near significant corridors are snatched up left and right.

“It’s exciting,” said Kristen Gorski, West Hartford’s economic development coordinator. “We are seeing activity in almost every single commercial neighborhood. A lot of these conversations were started three or four years ago, but things seem to be coming to fruition all at once.”

There are a few significant trends guiding the new building boom, Gorski said, including a shift toward mixed-use and apartment developments in response to the need for more housing, and developers’ desires to look beyond bustling West Hartford Center, which has traditionally driven most of the town’s growth.

“In the past, we saw more centralized development in West Hartford Center and it didn’t necessarily spread out to the other commercial districts,” she said. “But now you have those larger-scale projects in each of these neighborhoods, which is good for the businesses in those areas, because you have more feet on the ground.”

The town is doing what it can to help keep the ball rolling, conducting planning studies and proposing new transit-oriented development districts to encourage building, not only of apartments but spaces for commercial, retail and manufacturing businesses.

Gorski said the town is preparing a draft of a transit-oriented development ordinance that would seek to encourage new growth along New Park Avenue as a “linear district.”

The proposal, which is expected to be introduced this spring, would allow for increased density, reduce parking counts and encourage mixed-use development, while also simplifying approval processes and code compliance.

Since West Hartford is essentially fully developed, and there are no longer many large, empty parcels, developers are getting creative, carving out prospective sites from unused or underused spaces, a method known as infill development.

But officials don’t see the town’s lack of huge tracts as a major obstacle, since properties that fall into blight or vacancy, or that simply no longer meet the needs of the community, can be purchased and repurposed.

“Although we are a fully built out community, I think we will continue to see additional projects,” Gorski said. “I think this is really just the beginning, even though there is a lot happening right now. There will be more coming down the pipeline.”

Among the town’s projects is the 292-unit One Park Road apartment redevelopment, a $70 million conversion of the Sisters of St. Joseph convent and estate on Park Road headed by Lex-Laz LLC and Corridor Ventures.

Lex-Laz is a partnership between Marty Kenny, founder and principal of Lexington Partners, and Hartford-based parking magnate Alan Lazowski; Corridor, based in Avon, is a principal investor in the project.

A 48-unit development is going up at 920 and 924 Farmington Ave., a joint undertaking of Brian Zelman, New Britain developer Avner Krohn and Richard and Zach Korris.

Plans call for 40 one-bedroom apartments and eight two-bedroom units, and about 10,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial space.

Zelman, principal of Zelman Real Estate in West Hartford, said he envisions the property serving as a “gateway” to West Hartford Center.

“We’re looking to get a tenant in that space who also uses the space as a branding opportunity, possibly a company from downtown Hartford that may be interested in opening here,” he said.

The partners expect construction to begin this spring.

About 3 miles south, Abunasra is looking to build a $34 million mixed-use project with about 131 apartment units and 20,000 square feet of commercial space.

Nearby, the development arm of the West Hartford Housing Authority is continuing work on the multifamily 540 New Park Ave., which is expected to add 54 new apartment units at what had been a long-vacant commercial site.

Two other much-watched parcels also appear to be moving in the mixed-use or residential direction.

In January, after a years-long search for a suitable buyer, Kingswood Oxford School announced that it had reached an agreement to sell a piece of property adjacent to its campus on Trout Brook Drive — currently the home of the Children’s Museum of Connecticut — to New York-based Continental Properties, which plans to build a luxury rental community there.

The Children’s Museum, which occupies 3.5 acres, is in the process of finding a new location.

Continental has said it is still in the “early stage” of reviewing potential layouts and architecture for the property and will be consulting with town officials in the near future. A formal project application is expected to be submitted later this spring or early summer.

And in December, the University of Connecticut’s former West Hartford campus — once expected to host tech offices — sold for $2.75 million, to buyers who have largely stayed out of the spotlight. The Hartford Business Journal confirmed that a top executive at a Rhode Island real estate development company will play a key role in the property’s repurposing, though no plans have been announced.

Zelman attributes the flurry of activity to the community’s dynamism and balance of a lively downtown with residential options — a “suburban town with an urban core.”

“This is a great community that has rejuvenated itself,” Zelman said, pointing back to the development of commercial draws like Blue Back Square, which was built in the mid-2000s.

The recent growth spurt also coincides with a trend toward more urbanized living, as well as changes in demographics.

“Before COVID, there was a flight into urban areas, and this is kind of a continuation of that,” he said. “People are getting married at a later age, settling down at a later age, they’re more transient and this population — upwardly mobile professionals — have the income to support highly-amenitized rental units.”

Like Gorski, Zelman said he doesn’t think builders will run up against a lack of viable properties any time soon.

“It’s infill,” he said. “There’s product that just doesn’t fit the times anymore and it’s time to change its use. That’s nothing new.”

Zelman also pointed to stretches of New Britain and New Park avenues, which still have open and available space.

“We’re just at the beginning of a wave of development,” he said.