A nearly vacant 19-story office building in East Hartford is set to become an apartment building that will house hundreds of families.
The building, located at 111 Founders Plaza, is in the town’s Riverfront District and has a view of Hartford’s skyline.
Construction on the building will begin early next year, and start with demolishing the building’s interior, according to Chris Reilly, president of Hartford-based real estate development firm Lexington Partners that’s working on the project.
The interior and exterior of the building will be completely renovated, with just the bones remaining. Then about 250 apartments, including studios and one- and two- bedroom units will be constructed.
“It's irreplaceable, and quite frankly, the most conservationist approach to preservation and energy efficiency is to repurpose a previously built building, so when you come to trying to be green, converting a building like this is one of the best ways to do that,” Reilly said.
The building was originally constructed in the 1970s and needs infrastructure upgrades.
“It was built back in '74 when energy costs were a little different,” Reilly said. “It's a single-pane window right now, and it's just incredibly expensive to operate. So we don't want that for the next group of residents to have to have that burden.”
There is currently one business occupying a portion of the building, but that tenant will soon vacate the property, according to Reilly. d.
Construction should cost about $90 million, with $9 million coming from the state in the form of Community Investment Fund grants, which are designed to help boost underserved communities.
Whether the building will include any affordable apartments is still being determined, according to East Hartford Mayor Connor Martin. But, the town is already above the state-mandated 10% affordable housing stock requirement set for each municipality.
“We're actually a little over 19% affordable housing,” Martin said. “I say this respectfully, that East Hartford has done its part. We'll always continue to do its part in terms of building affordable housing, but we want to diversify those options so that no matter who you are in East Hartford, there is an excuse for why you can't live here.”
Now, the town is focusing on the quality of housing constructed as opposed to the quantity, Martin said.
“Look behind us. Squint your eyes. You're going to see an amazing transformation, starting with that building right there,” Gov. Ned Lamont said of the property.
