The building that houses the New Hartford Business Park’s sole occupant — The Hartford Financial Services Group — is for sale less than a year after it opened.
A public relations official for Ryan Cos., which owns the building, said the
decision to try to sell was based on what made financial sense.
“The
decision to sell this building was a capital allocation decision, part of a
select group of buildings across the country that Ryan
Companies has decided to sell in order to increase the company’s
overall liquidity,” spokeswoman Sarah Voight said in an e-mail.
The building has come under scrutiny in recent months with revelations that a closed-door panel had performed planning reviews for the $25 million building, despite the fact that it was outside the park’s official boundaries.
And last week, the state Department of State concluded that the 1999 law creating the panel and delineating the boundaries of the business park had not officially taken away the Planning Board's responsibility to do site plan reviews in the park.
That means the building could have to go through a second planning review process, officials have said.
Voight would not directly answer questions about whether the revelations had to do with the sale, instead pointing to her initial statement.
Town Councilwoman Christine Krupa, who is also a real estate attorney for Pyramid Management Group, said she didn’t think Ryan Cos.’ push to sell had to do with those issues.
“I think it may be that in our market real estate prices aren’t fluctuating that much, and it’s probably a good deal for them,” she said.
‘Flipping’
The 3-story, 129,456-square-foot building in the business park off Woods Highway opened in November. At that time, the Hartford, Conn.-based company had about 31,000 employees nationwide, 680 of which were in New Hartford.
A spokesman for The Hartford, which leases the building, was unable to get answers Tuesday to O-D questions about the impact of the sale.
Business park developer Larry Adler said it was his understanding that trying to sell the new building is “common practice” for Ryan Cos., the preferred developer for The Hartford Financial Services.
“They had talked about that early on,” he said.
Other officials agreed the potential sale of the property didn’t come as a surprise.
“It’s called flipping,” Town Supervisor Earle Reed said. “It’s very commonplace. Developers do that all the time, so we are not concerned at all about it.”
Local realtor Dominic Pavia said he didn’t know the specifics of The Hartford’s situation, but certain types of developers use that as a business model.
“They have to sell them on the open market to get the return on their investment so they can go on and build more,” he said of the buildings they develop.
Voight forwarded a statement from Ryan Cos. that said the company would continue working with Hartford Financial Services.
“Ryan Cos. has a solid relationship with The Hartford and we consider them a highly valued long term customer,” the statement from Collin Barr, Minnesota region president of Ryan Cos. said. “Over the last seven years, Ryan has developed office build-to-suits for The Hartford in California, Texas, Minnesota and New York, and look forward to working with The Hartford again.”
