Market News

Creative Dimensions to relocate to Cheshire...
Creative Dimensions, a Plainville based manufacturer of advertising and show displays, has reportedly signed a long term lease to relocate to approximately 115,000 square feet of office and manufacturing space at 345 McCausland Court, Cheshire CT, the former McKesson building.

Evergreen Solar expands in Devens MA...
Evergreen Solar, Inc., a Marlborough MA based alternative energy company has announced plans to expands it Devens MA facility from 300,000 square feet to 450,000 square feet.  The new expansion will include the hiring of an additional 350 employees.

S.H. Smith relocates to Hartford CT...
S. H. Smith & Co., has announced that it will relocate it West Hartford offices to 20 Church Street, Hartford in October of 2008.  S. H. Smith has signed a 21,000 square foot long term lease to occupy the recently renovated office tower.

Portmeirion USA expands in Waterbury CT...
Portmeirion USA, the Naugatuck based manufacturer of pottery products, has expanded its operations at 105 Progress Drive, Waterury CT.  Portmeirion reportedly executed a long term sub lease on 90,000 square feet at the formed TJX Companies facility.

T-Branch purchases Second Street, Palmer MA...
T-Branch LLC has recently purchased the property located at 9 Second Street, Palmer MA from Transplastics, Inc.  T-Branch purchased the 32,000 square foot manufacturing building, located on 7.5 acres, for $1,130,000.

Burris Logistics buys 92 acres in Rocky Hill CT...
Burris Logistics (www.burrislogistics.com), a Delaware based frozen food warehouse and distribution company, recently purchased 92 acres on Brook Street, Rocky Hill CT from Winstanley Enterprises for the construction of a 500,000 square foot warehouse/distribution facility.  The new warehouse, which will reportedly be constructed by the Stellar Group (www.stellar.net), will be used for Burris' BJ's Wholesale account.  The purchase price was reported to be $14.6 m.  (3/1/08)

Marjam Building Supply leases 40,000 sf in WH CT...
Marjam Building Supply Co. recently leased approximately 38,000 square feet at 697 Oakwood Drive, West Hartford CT.  Marjam reportedly signed a long term lease with Winkler Properties at the former Safety Kleen facility. (4/1/08)

PCA leases 97,000 sf in Westfield MA...
Packaging Corporation of America has reportedly signed a long term lease for a 97,700 square foot industrial building located at 61 Turnpike Industrial Park Road, Westfield MA.  PCA will relocate their East Longmeadow MA operations to this former Sonoco facility. (3/30/08)

EDM Distributors buys Suffield CT facility...
EDM Distributors, an Agawam based distributor and servicer of lawn mower and outdoor equipment, has recently purchased the former Turbine Engine Services building located at 1291 East Street, Suffield CT.  EDM purchased the 45,834 square foot facility for $1,500,000. (3/30/08)

780 James P. Casey Rd sells (again)...
780 James P Casey Road, Bristol CT, the former General Motors New Hyatt facility, was sold by New York investment firms Savanna Partners and Hudson Realty Capital to Bristol Center LLC for $60.5 million.  The 1.2 million square foot facility, located in the western side of Bristol CT, is substantially occupied by Clark Steel Framing, Arett Sales and Firestone Building Products, was approximately 95% occupied at the time of the sale.  (2/4/08)

STR expands in Somers CT...
Specialized Technology Resources Inc., an Enfield based research & development/manufacturer company, has recently expanded its operations in Connecticut by leasing 24,000 square feet at 24 Scitico Road, Somers CT.  The lease is reported to contain the right to purchase the 50,000 square foot facility.  (1/15/08)

Unistar buys 350 Knotter Drive, Chesire CT...
Unistar Properties, a Maryland based investment company, has recently purchased 350 Knotter Drive, Cheshire, a 120,000 square foot flex facility , owned by WE Knotter LLC and occupied by Alexion Pharmaceuticals for a reported $31.1 million ($259 per square foot).  (12/1/07)

Griffin Land completes 2 leases in Windsor CT...
Griffin Land, a Windsor based developer and investor, has recently reported two significant leases at 755 & 759 Rainbow Road, Windsor CT.  Marconi Electric Supply recently leased 43,800 square feet at 755 Rainbow Road and Europa Sports Products has leased 49,418 square feet at 759 Rainbow Road.  (1/1/08)

Performance Food Group opens in MA...
Performance Food Group recently opened its new warehouse and distribution facility in Western MA.  Performance constructed a a 236,000 square foot, state of the art distribution facility in the Smith and Wesson Industrial Park, located just off of I291 in Springfield MA.

Hampshire Group buys 475 Willard Avenue...
Hampshire Group, a New Jersey based investor, recently purchased the property at 475 Williard Avenue, Newington CT from Newington Business Park LLC.  The 660,000 square foot multi tenant industrial building was reportedly purchased for $13 million.

Unistar buys Alexion building in Cheshire...
Unistar Properties, a Washington DC based investor, has reportedly purchased 350 Knotter Drive, Cheshire for $31.1 million ($227 psf) from WE Knotter LLC.  350 Knotter Drive is a 137,000 square foot, high tech facility, occupied on a long term lease by Alexion Pharmaceuticals.

Wood Group leases 100,000 on BHA, Bloomfield CT...
Wood Group, the Houston based manufacturer with significant operations in East Windsor CT, has reportedly leased 100,000 sf at 1460 Blue Hills Avenue, Bloomfield CT from Stratford based DeMattia Companies.  1460 Blue Hills Avenue is the first phase of a two phase, two building development for DeMattia.

Fleet Pride leases 125,000 sf in North Haven...
Fleet Pride, the Texas based distributor of heavy duty truck and trailer replacement parts, has leased 125,000 square feet of office and distribution space at 15 Dwight Street, North Haven, a former US Surgical distribtion facility.  Details of the lease were not announced.

Yale U Buys Bayer Facilities...
Yale University recently closed the purchase of its long rumored acquisition of the former Bayer Healthcare facility on Morgan Lane in  in West Haven CT.  Yale paid $109 million for 1.5 million square foot, 137 acre property.  While Yale has not disclosed what is will use the facility for, it has said that they will utilize many of the existing Bayer lab and research facilities to attract scientists throughout the world.

Blue Bell Mattress to Acquire former Viking building...
Blue Bell Mattress Co., a Windsor based manufacturer, is reportedly acquiring the former Viking Office Products building at 24 Thompson Road, East Windsor from 24 Thompson Road LLC.  The acquisition price for the 145,000 square foot warehouse was not disclosed.  Blue Bell intends to move to their new facility by the end of the year.

Arch RE Relocates to Farmington...
Arch RE Facultative Writers has recloated its operations to 10 Waterside Drive, Farmington CT.  Arch has relocated to approximately 12,665 square feet of office space at the 62,000 square foot, three story office building.

Investors Acquire 14 Mass & CT Properties...

KBS REIT, Hackman Capital and Calare Properties have formed a joint venture and acquired 14 industrial properties in Massachusetts and Connecticut totalling over 6.2 million square feet.  In total, the new joint venture acquired over 11 million square feet in CT, MA, NH, NY, PA, TX and CO. for $516 million.  The 11 million square feet (31 buildings) was acquired from Equity Industrial Partners of Needham MA.

AIG to relocate to 1690 New Britain Avenue...
AIG has reportedly signed a long term lease to move its 74 Scott Swamp Road operations to approximately 59,000 square feet of office space at 1690 New Britain Avenue, Farmington, the former Hamilton Standard/UTC building.

Intertia Dynamics moves to New Hartford...
Intertia Dynamics, of Torington CT has signed a long term lease for approximately 70,000 square feet at 31 Industrial Park Road, New Hartford.  The lease at the former Hitchcock Furniture facility marks Inertia's return to the New Hartford area after a fire chased the company to Torrington a number of years ago.

Rumors and Deals...

Yale University rumored to be under contract on 400 Morgan Lane, West Haven CT, the former 415,000 square foot Bayer facility...

UniStar Properties LLC has closed on the purchase of 50 Tower Lane, Avon CT, a 73,000 square foot manufacturing facility occupied by Reflexite Corp., from EB Realty...

DeMattia Companies rumored to be under contract to purchase a 225,000 square foot Konica facility at 550 Marshall Phelps Road, Windsor CT...

Somma Technologies, a Cheshire based manufacturing/assembly company, has purchased the 36,000 square foot,  former Strength Systems building at 166 Highland Pard Road, Bloomfield CT...

Hampshire Properties purchased the 22,138 square foot former Space Technologies property at 81 Fuller Way, Berlin CT for $1,125,000 from Vincent Andrews Trust...

Moore Medical/McKesson Signs Lease in Farmington...
Moore Medical, a division of McKesson Corp. has reportedly signed a long term lease for approximately 50,000 square feet at 1690 New Britain Avenue, Farmington.  The space at the former UTC facility will reportedly accommodate Moore's existing John Downey Drive, New Britain operations.

US Repeating Arms Property Under Contract...
344 Winchester Avenue, New Haven, the former US Repeating Arms property, is reportedly under contract to be purchased by a regional investor.  The buyer of the 225,000 square foot facility, located on approximately 15 acres, is reportedly prepared to subdivide the facility into multiple units for smaller industrial manufacturers.

UTC Extends HQ Lease in Hartford...
United Technologies Corp. has recently extended its corporate headquarters lease at 1 Financial Plaza (The Gold Building) in Hartford CT.  UTC, who's initial lease expiration was December 2009, reportedly extended their 174,000 square foot lease through December 2014.

Carvel to expand in Connecticut...
Celebration Foods, the company that produces Carvel Ice Cream, has recently announced plans to build a 130,000 square foot manufacturing plant on the former Fafnir Bearing site in downtown New Britain CT.  The 13.5 acre Myrtle Street site was reportedly purchased for $252,000.  Celebration plans on employing up to 250 employees at the new location, including approximately 40 employees at its corporate offices in Rocky Hill.

Lane Construction buys Cheshire building...
Lane Construction Corp., a long time Meriden based roads and transportation construction company, has recently purchased a 70,000 square foot office building located at 90 Fieldstone Court, Cheshire.  Lane is reported to be moving all of its Meriden operations to the newly purchased facility.  Lane purchased the property for $5.8 million.

MetLife moving to Bloomfield....
MetLife, Inc. has completed the purchase of CIGNA Corp's South Campus office building.  Purchase price is reported to be $50 million.  MetLife will reportedly relocate approximately 1,300 employess from downtown Hartford to this new location by mid-2008.

Cantor Colburn leases 50,000 square feet in Hartford...
Cantor Colburn LLP, the Intellectual Property law firm, has reportedly signed a long term lease to occupy approximately 50,000 square feet of office space at 20 Church Street in Hartford Connecticut (formerly known as the "Stilts Building").  Cantor Colburn is presently located at 50 Griffin Road South in Bloomfield Connecticut.

CCAT leases 30,000 sf in East Hartford...
CCAT (Connecticut Center for Advanced Technology) has concluded its long search for new facilities outside of the UTC Research Center with the signing of a 30,000 square foot lease at 222 Pitkin Street, East Hartford, CT.  It is reported that CCAT has signed a 5 year lease at this 37,500 square foot flex building.

Emhart Glass purchases land in Windsor...
Emhart Glass, with operations in Enfield CT, has recently purchased 15 acres at 123 Great Pond Drive, Windsor from Winfield Business Park LLC for $720,000.  It is reported that Emhart is under construction of a 45,000 square foot research and development on the site.  Scheduled completion is September 2007.

Winstanley buys Rocky Hill land...
Winstanley Enterprises, a Concord MA. based investor/developer, has recently purchased 104 acres of industrially zoned land on Brook Street in Rocky Hill CT.  Purchase price for the two parcels (12 and 93 acres respectively) was $10,791,035 (approximately $104,000 per acre).  Winstanley has reportedly begun construction of three 50,000 square foot (+) flex building on a portion of the property.

Napoli Foods purchases land in Cheshire...

Napoli Foods, Inc., a Waterbury based Italian food distributor, has recently purchased a 13.2 acre site located on West Johnson Avenue, Cheshire.  It is reported that Napoli will construct an industrial facility in excess of 100,000 square feet to be utilized as their new headquarters.  Purchase price of the property was $825,000.

Travelers purchases Windsor warehouse...

The Travelers Idemnity Co. has recently purchased 99 Lamberton Road, Windsor CT.  99 Lamberton Road is a 194,000 square foot warehouse facility that was formerly owned and occupied by Terry Steam Corp.  Travelers had previously occupied approximately 130,000 square feet of space in the facility.  Reported purchase price was $10,900,000.

Walter Surface Technologies relocating...
Walter Surface Technologies, a Canadian based distributor with operations on Locust Street in Hartford CT, is relocating its operations to a new, design build, 50,000 square foot facility located just off of Day Hill Road, Windsor CT.  Walter has recently placed their Locust Street facility on the market for sale.

Bristol Myers Squibb expands in MA...
Bristol Myers Squibb recently pruchased 88 acres at the former Fort Devens.  Purchase price was $3.6 mill.  BMS is reported to be ready to begin construction of a 1.5 million square foot manaufacturing facility at this location.

Local 777 purchases 450 Murdock Ave...
Local 777, a training school for plumbers and pipe fitters, has purchased the former CN Flagg facility at 450 Murdock Avenue, Meriden CT.  Local 777 JATC Realty Inc. has purchased the 50,000 square foot facility for $2.0 mill.  GKN Aerospace, the most recent occupant of the property, is relocating its operations to an existing facility in Cromwell CT.

Electrical Wholesalers leases 140,000 sf...
Electrical Wholesalers, with operations throughout the State of Connecticut, has leased approximately 140,000 square feet of warehouse and office space at 699 Middle Street, Middletown (better known as the North & Judd building).  This completes the leasing of the 699 Middle Street building.

Bayer HealthCare to vacate W. Haven...
Bayer HealthCare has recently placed it 1.5 million square foot, 137 acre office and research & development facilities on the market for sale.  It is expected that Bayer will be vacating these facilities over the next 12-24 months.  Bayer has already substantially vacated it's warehouse and pill plant operations here.

Lincoln National Life renews lease...

It has been recently reported that Lincoln National Life Insurance Co. has renewed its lease at Metro Center in downtown Hartford.  Reportedly, Lincoln National executed a five year renewal on approximately 190,000 square feet of its initial 200,000 square feet of space.

Harvey Industries to build in Chicopee...
Harvey Industries has recently purchased 30 acres of industrial land on the Springfield/Chicopee town lines.  The purchase, from WestMass Area Development Corp., is to construct a 255,000 square foot regional manufacturing and distribution center.  It is reported that this facility will replace Harvey's Springfield Mass facilities.

Lego sells holdings in Enfield...
Lego Systems, Inc. has sold its warehouse and office properties on Compass House, Taylor Road and Shaker Road in Enfield.  It has been reported that Needham based investor Equity Industrial has purchased the properties with partial leaseback obligations from Lego Systems.  Sale price for the portfolio was $58.9 million.

Investcorp purchases two CT properties...
Investcorp, a New York based investment firm, recently purchased two Preferred Real Estate Investment, Inc. properties located in CT.  Investcorp reportedly has purchased the properties located at 300 Montowese Avenue, North Haven and 181 West Johnson Avenue, Cheshire for approximately $77 million.  The two properties, 824,000 sf and 527,000 sf respectively, were purchased by Preferred in January 2006 for $57.5 million.  Subsequent to the purchase of the Montowese property, Preferred replaced Stop & Shop with New Breed Corp. as its primary tenant.  This is reportedly Investcorp's first major commercial real estate investment in the Connecticut market.

Connecticut Science Cntr breaks ground...
Connecticut Science Center has recently broke ground on its new facility at Adrian's landing.  Scheduled to be completed by 2008, the $150 million center is being constructed on a recently acquired 2.2 acre site next to the downtown Marriott Hotel and Connecticut Convention Center.

Comcast Connecticut expands in Enfield...

The Hartford expands in Windsor...

United Natural Foods to expand...
United Natural Foods, the Dayville based specialty food distributor, has purchased an 88,000 square foot industrial/distribution facility located at 300 Lake Street, Dayville CT.  United reportedly plans to construct a 270,000 square foot distribution building on the site (which neighbors their corporate headquarters).  Purchase price for the property (located on 11.4 acres) was $2,500,000.

Calare & Hackman to rehab CT Mutual prop...

Calare Properties and Hackman Capital Partners has announced that it plans on investing up to $30 million in the former Connecticut Mutual Insurance headquarters on Asylum Hill in Hartford.  In the long awaited news conference, Calare and Hackman announced its intent to re-develop the 450,00 square foot building as an office complex (rumors persisted that both partners may have re-developed the property into alternative uses).  Construction is expected to begin in Spring of 2007.

Wadsworth Atheneum to Expand to Hartford Times...
Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, founded in 1842 and the longest continuously operating public art museam in the United States, has announced that it has executed a 99 year lease from the State of Connecticut and intends to expand its operations into the former Hartford Times building on Prospect Street, Hartford.  Wadsworth will begin $15.5 million of renovations to the former newspaper building beginning in spring of 2007.  Wadsworth intends to move into the new facility in the fall of 2008. 

CBRE to acquire Trammell Crow...
In a deal reported to be worth $2.2 billion (including debt), CB Richard Ellis has announced that it will be acquiring Dallas based Trammell Crow.  Scheduled to close at the end of 2006 or beginning of 2007, the merger will create the first Fortune 500 real estate services company ever.

Winstanley Enterprises portfolio closes...
In one of the largest industrial investment transactions of the year, the Winstanley Enterprises portfolio, a Connecticut, 13 building, 1.5 million square foot industrial/flex offering, has sold for $97 million to HRPT Properties Trust, a Newton Mass based REIT.

Cabela's to move forward at the RENT...
Cabela's, the national outdoor sporting goods retailer, has filed plans to develop a 200,000 square foot store at Rentschler Field, East Hartford.  In what has been a long rumored development, the company announced that it plans to open the store in late 2007. 

Front Street...Finally!!!
It's been expected for awhile but finally Greenwich based developer Bradley Nitkin has signed an agreement with the State of CT to develop the last leg of the Riverfront Development in Hartford, best known as "Front Street".  It is expected that the first phase of the Front Street development will include 115 residential units and 60,000 square feet of retail space.