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October 3, 2007 STAMFORD - The Greenwich-based company that controls about 70 percent of developable land in the South End of Stamford wants to make a big imprint - 600,000 to 700,000 square feet of new office space rising as high as 17 stories - on the peninsula's skyline. James Cabrera, managing partner and co-founder of Antares Investment Partners, said this week that Antares wants to construct two buildings on the former Manger Electric site and several surrounding tracts. The site lies between the Mill River, Washington Boulevard, the Metro-North Railroad tracks and Pulaski Street. The project would be up to 300,000 square feet larger than the Royal Bank of Scotland office complex under construction on Washington Boulevard, a few hundred feet from the Antares parcel. Antares said in February that it planned to buy the Manger site and redevelop it with offices. The plans depend on zoning approval. Late last month, Antares paid the Manger family $17 million, plus $1.1 million to a company that previously had sought to redevelop the site. The 5.5-acre Manger property contains two empty factories and several vacant multifamily houses on West Henry Street. The former McCall's factory lies on the banks of the Mill River off Pulaski Street. Part of the old Manger site on Washington Boulevard near the Stamford train station is being used for parking. The factory, which made high-tech wiring, closed in the late 1990s. Harold Bernstein, attorney for the Mangers, said the family is "very pleased with the transaction. But they have a sentimental attachment to the property that their father worked so hard to assemble." Bernard "Ben" Manger, founder of Manger Electric, died in 1995 at age 75. He is survived by his wife, two sons, two daughters and several grandchildren. U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Stamford is his nephew. To complete the development parcel, Cabrera said Antares expects to buy several multifamily houses on another 1.5 acres next to the former Manger site for an additional few million dollars. Most of those houses on Washington Boulevard and Pulaski Street are occupied. Cabrera said the development would cost about $500 million in total. Because the site is zoned for manufacturing, the project would require a change in the city's Master Plan of Development and subsequent zoning approvals to allow offices, he said. The proposal also would require traffic and environmental approvals. If approved, Antares would begin to build once it has a tenant to fill half the project, he said. The New York City office of Cushman & Wakefield Inc. commercial real estate is looking for tenants for what Antares would call Gateway I and Gateway II, Cabrera said. Cabrera said 28 New York City companies each are looking for at least 250,000 square feet of office space. Cabrera said only six Manhattan office buildings have vacancies that large. "We want to accommodate more tenants coming out of New York City who want to be near the train station," he said. Jeff Gage, senior vice president at Stamford-based Albert B. Ashforth Inc. commercial real estate, said signing up several tenants of that size will not be easy. "It will be a challenge," Gage said. "There are not a lot of UBSs and RBSs out there. At least four tenants that need at least 100,000 square feet would consider that site. Antares has to get them all to the table simultaneously to satisfy the (50 percent) preleasing requirement." Robert Caruso, senior managing director of the Fairfield County and Westchester County, N.Y., operations of Los Angeles-based CB Richard Ellis commercial real estate, said the proposed Antares buildings would be leased quickly. "There is strong demand for high-quality office space throughout Fairfield County, especially for locations that are in close proximity to a transportation hub," Caruso said. The Antares project would complement additional dense development on the opposite side of Washington Boulevard. W&M Properties, owner of the 280,000-square-foot Metro Center office building at Station Place and Washington Boulevard, recently received approval to build Metro Green, a 5.2-acre complex with a 240-foot-tall office tower and three apartment buildings on the same block as the Stamford Transportation Center. Though a widened road called the Urban Transitway would speed access to South End buildings, since only a few roads currently go under the railroad tracks or over the river into the South End, the city must approach Gateway I and II with caution, Stamford Mayor Dannel Malloy said. "It's got a long way to go," Malloy said. "We are going to have a bunch of questions to ask. What is it going to look like? How will people get in and out, and is there a user" for the office space? Another question is how Antares, which has bought tens of millions of dollars worth of Stamford office buildings this past summer, would finance Gateway. Cabrera believes financing is not a problem, despite the subprime lending debacle haunting commercial and residential real estate. "Banks are lending to qualified buyers for quality projects in good locations," he said. Antares would own 10 percent of Gateway, while Lubert-Adler Real Estate Funds, a Philadelphia-based investor that is an equity partner in other Antares projects, would own the rest, Cabrera said. Antares received an acquisition and development loan from Royal Bank of Scotland to buy the Manger property and several houses surrounding it, he said. Pending city and state approval for Gateway, privately owned Antares would get another loan from RBS to finance construction of the two massive office buildings, he said. On Aug. 1, Goldman Sachs and RBS gave Antares a $190 million acquisition and development loan for redevelopment of other former industrial properties elsewhere in the South End, Cabrera said. Antares plans to build 4,000 housing units, 400,000 square feet of retail space and 250,000 square feet of office space on reclaimed South End brownfields. The area once housed factories for Pitney Bowes and Yale & Towne, as well as a former Connecticut Light & Power plant and a fuel depot. The multibillion-dollar project would take about a decade to finish. Antares and its equity partners have invested substantially in existing office buildings in Stamford and Greenwich this year. In March, Antares paid Stamford-based smokeless tobacco giant UST Inc. $136.7 million for its former headquarters in Greenwich. Antares plans to renovate the 150,000-square-foot building for $50 million and lease it to hedge funds. In the South End, Antares bought office buildings at 333 Ludlow St., 2187 Atlantic St. and 1 Dock St. this year for $203.6 million. Antares paid Stamford-based Seaboard Properties $87 million this past summer for five office buildings at the Stamford Landing complex on Southfield Avenue and another building at 600 Summer St. in downtown Stamford. The company also bought the Holly Pond Plaza office building on East Main Street from Seaboard last month for $14.25 million. Antares, however, has had problems with residential projects. Last week, the company abandoned plans to convert several hundred apartments in western Greenwich to condominiums and said it was refinancing the property. It bought the two complexes for $223 million last year. Antares has said the units will revert to apartments. |
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