Goodwin Tower/Hotel plans

[The Voice of Reason]

this HBJ article gives the info about the acution

 

http://www.hartfordbusiness.com/article/20150326/NEWS01/150329952

 

This gets its own topic because it contains the wildcard that is the goodwin hotel space.

 

The office tower is 46% occupied which is pretty bad.  The building actually has a decent ammount of parking too, so its strange that it struggles.  We will see if the new owners can turn that around and what their ultimate plans are.

 

Interestingly, this COULD conceivably be converted into apartments or condos.   the building actually has everything needed to do so, so that might be a possible play.

 

The Hotel might be re-opened or it might be turned into apartments again.  Either way, this building will bring more apartments or hotel rooms to the city, so this is LONG overdue.

 

 

 

[beerbeer]

this HBJ article gives the info about the acution

 

http://www.hartfordbusiness.com/article/20150326/NEWS01/150329952

 

This gets its own topic because it contains the wildcard that is the goodwin hotel space.

 

The office tower is 46% occupied which is pretty bad.  The building actually has a decent ammount of parking too, so its strange that it struggles.  We will see if the new owners can turn that around and what their ultimate plans are.

 

Interestingly, this COULD conceivably be converted into apartments or condos.   the building actually has everything needed to do so, so that might be a possible play.

 

The Hotel might be re-opened or it might be turned into apartments again.  Either way, this building will bring more apartments or hotel rooms to the city, so this is LONG overdue.

 

The unions basically ran the hotel out of business.  The new owner would need a much better deal to re-open the hotel.

[The Voice of Reason]

I think it might become apartments. 

I mean minimum bid is 6 million...

 

say it goes for double that

 

turning the hotel rooms back into apartments couldnt cost much more than 10 million

this building is fully plumbed for residential... its NOT a gut reno

CRDA and such would surely contributes some funds.. and historic credits are GUARANTEED

owner equity would li8ke be just a couple more million after purchasing and you end up with a nice apartment block that would demand high rents

 

 

there is no extra money is making it a hotel

[The Voice of Reason]

http://touch.courant.com/#section/2280/article/p2p-83530928/

 

 

the interesting quote

 

Prior to this week's three-day auction, the Capital Region Development Authority had been approached by at least a half-dozen potential bidders asking about possible funding for either reopening the hotel or converting it to apartments, CRDA's executive director confirmed Wednesday.

"We're interested," Michael W. Freimuth, the executive director, said. "It's been kind our niche to take on properties that have been empty for a while and are historic."

 

[beerbeer]

The building sold for a little over 17 million bucks, down from over 40 million when Northland bought it.

 

I always thought the location was odd.  The idea behind putting up a 30-story building is to give your tenants great views.  They blocked one whole side of their building with City Place and blocked 25% of the windows in City Place with their building. Kinda nutty. 

 

Look at the Park Place Towers. Notice how they are offset so everyone has a view.  Or notice how the Gold Building and 777 Main have their thin sides next to each other to give the vast majority of offices a view. Just turning Goodwin 45 degrees would have given everyone views. 

 

Anyhow, hope the new owner fills hotel space with something. Apartments or a hotel would be great.

[JimSawhill]

I would love to see both a hotel and apartments/condos. The hotel could have a restaurant named 'Pierpont' or 'JP', named for a citizen of Goodwin.

[The Voice of Reason]

this is back in the news with the new owners saying almost nothing but promising they are bring it back to former glory.

 

they use the term tenents and guests which makes me think they plan to revive the hotel

 

For too many years Goodwin Square has been under-utilized, and we plan to invest in the office tower and the atrium to bring them back to their former glory as we attract tenants and guests to these special properties

[beerbeer]

The new owners are considering opening the hotel back up.  They claim to be in talks with a number of chains.

http://www.courant.com/breaking-news/hc-hartford-goodwin-hotel-future-20150831-story.html

[The Voice of Reason]

I am happy with this choice, as long as its something.

Also, I suspect that it can be a hotel for a couple years and if the rental market is still strong after absorbing all these new units, they can still convert it.  Besides hotel chains require a certain amount of re-investment every few years to keep the brand flag.  this is one of those situations where they could ya know make the call after each capital expense windows gets close to see if they want to continue

 

 

[The Voice of Reason]

The hotel piece is being sold to the guys developing the hotel in blue Back square.

 

They are going to re-open the hotel downtown as a boutique property and also operate a restaurant