The Summit at Danbury. Photo courtesy of Summit Development

One of Fairfield County’s biggest and most stubborn commercial vacancies just got substantially smaller.

Nuvance Health Systems, one of the main hospital networks for Fairfield County and the Hudson Valley, says it will consolidate offices in Connecticut and New York State in 220,000 square feet at Danbury’s The Summit office complex. Gerry Leeds, Maureen O’Boyle, Jim Fagan, Brian Scruton, Adam Klemick and Kathleen Fazio at Cushman & Wakefield assisted with the transaction.

Owners Summit Development of Southport, Crestline Investors of Fort Worth, Texas and Rizzo Cos. of Danbury bought the 1.2 million-square-foot former Union Carbide headquarters at 39 Old Ridgebury Road out of foreclosure at 15 percent occupancy for $17 million in 2018. Since then, the partnership has worked to reposition the property as 600,000 square feet of class A office space, 400 apartments, 75,000 square feet of conference and event space and 30,000 square feet of services and amenities including a cafe, fitness center and courtyards.

Designed by the prominent architectural firm of Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo, The Summit was constructed as Union Carbide’s corporate headquarters in the early 1980s at a cost of $450 million. In 2002, Dow Chemical acquired Union Carbide and sold the building in 2006. In 2009, a new owner purchased the hilltop building but later died in an auto accident, after which the complex began losing tenants and eventually slipped into foreclosure.

Nuvance’s lease runs for 12 years, The Summit’s owners said in an announcement, and includes an option to expand up to 300,000 square feet. Its executive headquarters, back offices, labs and clinical facilities will be consolidated at The Summit.

“The turnaround of this property that had been a beacon in Danbury for nearly 40 years has gone beyond what we could have imagined,” project manager Michael Basile said in a statement. “We have invested $20 million in improvements, and we have been blessed with robust commercial activity that has brought 12 new leases since our October 2018 acquisition, increasing occupancy from 20 percent to 41 percent. The Nuvance lease will bring office space occupancy to 80 percent and with their proposed further expansion we will be at 100 percent.”

Further growth is in store for the once largely-empty complex, with zoning changes secured that will allow the creation of 200 apartments in the building and state bonding approval pending for the creation of a public career and technical school for middle and high schoolers. Departing Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton said in a statement that the property “is positioned to be our city’s biggest asset.”

“Assuming the final bonding for the academy is approved in January,” Summit Development President Felix T. Charney said in a statement, “we will have filled all but 120,000 square feet of the 1.2 million we acquired in foreclosure. To accomplish this required a shared vison of all involved and a willingness to, quite literally, think outside the box. I am proud to have been a part of a true team effort.”

The Summit isn’t Charney’s first large-scale repositioning project, having already renovated of the Norden Systems plant on Interstate 95 in Norwalk into a mixed-use residential and office complex, converting the Handy & Harmon factory site in Fairfield to a retail center anchored by Whole Foods and renovating the Yale Lock Building and The Maritime buildings on the waterfront in South Norwalk into offices and apartments.

“The announcement of the agreement between The Summit and Nuvance Health is some of the best economic news we have seen this year. As Connecticut enters the holiday season, this is great news that we should all be celebrating,” Gov. Ned Lamont said in a statement. “Summit Development has made a lasting commitment to Danbury and to the state of Connecticut through their investment in this property, and their new partnership with Nuvance Health, a healthcare institution which provides world-class care. This announcement is only the beginning, as I know it will serve as a catalyst for additional growth and development in Danbury.”