Photo courtesy of the city of Hartford

After losing its anchor tenant in 2023, the troubled CityPlace I tower in downtown Hartford could be headed for another storm.

Mortgage-holder Wilmington Trust has filed suit in Hartford Superior Court to have the 185 Asylum St. building turned over to a receiver.

The building’s owner, an affiliate of Boston investor Paradigm Properties, has admitted it can no longer make payments on a $45 million Wells Fargo loan that Wilmington Trust now holds, the latter bank claimed in a court filing.

The bank wants Lewis Taulbee of commercial brokerage JLL’s property management arm appointed receiver. In a court filing, it claims Paradigm has agreed to the appointment of a receiver.

Paradigm bought the tower for $113.25 million in September 2015, city records show. The 38-story, 885,000-square-foot CityPlace I was 97 percent occupied in 2016, when Paradigm CEO Kevin McCall told The Commercial Record that, “We felt there was a good probability that [anchor tenant] UnitedHealthcare stays, and that’s a bet that we’re making.”

Unfortunately, United slashed it footprint in the tower from 350,000 square feet to just 57,000 square feet according to a 2022 Hartford Business Journal report.

The downtown Hartford office market ended 2024 with 2.19 million square feet of direct vacacy and nearly 228,000 square feet available for sublease, giving an overall vacancy rate of 32.8 percent according to Cushman & Wakefield research. Despite a small amount of positive net absorption in the fourth quarter, the city’s downtown saw over 100,000 square feet of negative net absorption in 2024. Current average asking rent is $22.59 per square foot, with average class A asking rent sitting at $23.91 on the same basis.

CityPlace I isn’t the only tower in trouble with its lender, with buildings like the iconic Stilts Building also facing foreclosure proceedings.