Prolific apartment developer Avner Krohn has sold his freshly completed 107-unit apartment building in downtown New Britain and is negotiating to sell its twin next door, saying he’s focusing more attention on the planned Concourse Park mega-project in East Hartford.
“We are all in on East Hartford, we’re fully ramped up and ready to make it happen,” Krohn said Monday. “We feel very strongly that East Hartford will do very well.”
Krohn confirmed that his Jasko Development recently sold The Brit, a six-story, modernistic glass-faced building in the heart of downtown, to a partnership of Reliant Partners LLC and Investment 360. Krohn did not disclose the purchase price, and Solomon Katz, listed as a key official in Reliant and Investment 360, could not be reached Monday.
When it was proposed in 2021, The Brit was revolutionary for the city’s ailing downtown, and represented the first large-scale infusion of market-rate housing in decades. Then-Mayor Erin Stewart’s administration granted a 26-year tax incentive worth more than $300,000 a year to get Jasko to demolish the abandoned Burritt Bank headquarters at Main and Bank streets and replace it with an amenity-rich apartment complex.
The Brit became the first in a series of upscale, midrise residential complexes that Jasko built or is building in New Britain, and its features — outdoor fire pits, a rooftop balcony, a sprawling deck with grilling stations, a fitness center and a pet spa — would have been unimaginable in that location just a few years earlier.
When it opened last year, its rents were also something entirely new for downtown New Britain: $1,650 for a 500-square-foot studio, climbing to $2,750 for a two-bed, two-bath unit of about 1,000 square feet.
Results have been mixed: Longtime city residents who warned there would be no market for such apartments in downtown were proven wrong, with dozens of tenants signing up before the building opened. Still, occupancy stands at 75%, management is now offering six weeks of free rent for new tenants signing a year-long lease, and the 5,000-square-foot space envisioned for an upscale restaurant remains without an occupant.
Next door, Jasko’s Highrailer a 114-unit apartment that’s largely identical to The Brit, is scheduled to open in the spring. Krohn confirmed he’s negotiating with a buyer for that building, too, but isn’t confirming whether it’s the same companies that took The Brit.
Krohn acknowledged that the nationwide pullback in bricks-and-mortar commercial and retail markets has affected his projects. He said he’s confident that solid, attractive restaurants can be brought in for The Brit as well as The Highrailer, which has about 6,000 square feet of commercial space.
“It’s been a challenge. We’ve had interest, but we’ve turned down a lot of retailers. We’re looking for restaurants that are going to bring flair and draw crowds from within the city and its neighborhoods and from outside the city,” he said. “We put in hundreds of thousands of dollars of infrastructure for restaurants in both buildings: ventilation systems that go to the roof, underground commercial grease traps, utilities service that can support restaurants.
“We’re very restaurant-centric and beauty care-centric. It’s the chicken and and egg: retail loves to see people, and building occupants want to see a lot of retail. We’ve gotten close (to signing a restaurant) a couple of times, but we haven’t had the right one so far.”
The construction and rental markets have changed since Krohn proposed The Brit in late 2021. At the time, he anticipated a cost of $14 million and an opening in 2023; the final figure was in the mid-$20 millions and construction continued through 2024.
Jasko has built the elevator shaft for a third mid-rise apartment building downtown, the 100-unit The Strand. Krohn hasn’t said whether he’ll sell that one, or what he plans with The Byline, a 44-unit boutique apartment building on the edge of West Hartford’s town center.
Jasko and business partner Brian Zelman are also constructing a 40-unit addition to their Bloomfield apartment complex, the Residences at Wash Brook. By far the biggest project they’re working on is in East Hartford, where they’re looking to build 402 apartments on the site of a demolished multiplex theater.
The Capitol Region Development Authority is scheduled to put out bid requests this month for site preparation at the former Showcase Cinemas property, and Krohn expects that work will begin within 90 days of a contractor being selected. After that, Krohn and Zelman plan to start constructing the first phase of Concourse Park: 309 apartments in three-story buildings. A second phase of 93 apartments in a four-story building is expected to follow that.