The new owner of two-thirds of the condominiums at Bushnell on the Park in downtown Hartford plans extensive renovations to the 33-year-old building, including cleaning the façade, resurfacing the concrete patio and updating mechanical systems.
Hamilton Point Investments, a real estate investment group based in Old Lyme, acquired 129 of 180 units in the 12-story building in a foreclosure. Since the units in the Wells Street building were converted to condos in the late 1980s, the majority have been held by a single owner and rented out. The remaining 51 units are individually owned and weren’t involved in the foreclosure.
The transaction, which involved buying an defaulted mortgage at an undisclosed price, also includes 28,000 square feet of office space on two floors.
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Although Hamilton Point wouldn’t say how much it intended to invest in the renovations, the work could easily run into a $1 million or more.
David Kelsey, a Hamilton Point managing principal, said the firm was attracted to the property because the 129 units are almost fully occupied; and demand for a still-limited number of apartments in the city remains healthy despite a high, 30 percent office vacancy rate.
“There’s a pretty small universe of competitive properties in an area that has a fair number of young professionals,” Kelsey said.
More apartments are planned in the city. Across Bushnell Park, the owners of the Capitol Center office building envision 40 mixed-income apartments. On Constitution Plaza, the owners of the former Clarion Hotel on Constitution Plaza envision 180-200 apartments, mostly studios and one bedrooms.
Kelsey said the renovations may mean some modest increase in rents at Bushnell on the Park, but that still hasn’t been determined. Rents for a studio apartment at Bushnell on the Park average about $1,000 a month, below newer construction at, say, The Lofts at Temple & Main, where studios start at $1,100.
Kelsey and his partner, Matthew Sharp, formed Hamilton Point about three years ago and have been purchasing properties, mostly in the Northeast and Midwest. In October, Hamilton Point purchased the mortgage that the previous owner, Bushnell Regency, had stopped making payments on. But Hamilton did not take control of the units until three weeks ago after working through Bushnell Regency’s foreclosure and bankruptcy proceedings.
He wouldn’t say Monday how much Hamilton Point paid for the mortgage but said it came at a discount.
Bushnell Regency bought the units in 2002 for $15.6 million. When Wells Fargo Bank Minnesota first filed for foreclosure in 2009, it was owed $11.8 million before interest and late fees. That debt was later reduced $9.7 million, according to court documents.
In Connecticut, Hamilton Point also owns apartment complexes in Middletown and New London.
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