A major Boston-area developer has won the bidding for a 300-acre section of Pratt & Whitney’s Rentschler Field property in East Hartford.
The jet engine manufacturer hired CBRE early this year to market the section of the former airfield property to developers for up to 2.3 million square feet of distribution space known as “The Logistics Center @ Rentschler Field.”
Newton, Massachusetts-based National Development has agreed to buy the property for an undisclosed price, Pratt & Whitney announced Monday.
“The combination of the central location, the immediate highway accessibility and the access to a densely populated labor pool is unparalleled and we are already hard at work evaluating possibilities for the site,” Edward Marsteiner, managing partner at National Development, said in a statement.
The Pratt & Whitney site is located next to the aerospace manufacturer’s headquarters and the University of Connecticut football stadium, and includes 21 acres ground-leased to Cabela’s sporting goods. Brokers also touted the site’s proximity to Interstates 84 and 91.
East Hartford officials have been seeking to revitalize the nearly 1,200-acre surrounding area, known as the Silver Lane Corridor, by encouraging redevelopment of the strip-mall style commercial properties which have had high vacancies in recent years. The town approved an overlay zoning district that applies to the Silver Lane corridor and encourages a range of uses including housing.
New Britain-based Jasko Development is proposing 260 apartments at the long-vacant Showcase Cinemas property, which the town acquired in 2019 as part of its blighted property removal program.
National Development has recent experience in Fairfield County development. In 2019, the firm bought the former GE Capital offices in Stamford for a partial demolition and construction of a 146-unit assisted living complex called Waterstone at High Ridge, which is scheduled to open in 2022.
The company is proposing a 1.1-million-square-foot mixed-use development known as Iron Works in an industrial section of South Boston, and redeveloped the former Circle Cinema property in Boston as a hotel and senior housing complex.





