For 30 years, Greenwich-based HB Nitkin Group has focused on turning undervalued commercial properties into mixed-use developments that would capture and retain reliable business tenants.
When Helen Nitkin started the company with her now-deceased husband, Bradley, in 1984, the couple envisioned buying dilapidated commercial properties in New York and Connecticut, redeveloping them and repositioning them as prime retail and office spaces.
In recent years, the company has faced the challenge of finding retailers willing to move into newly vacant spaces in Westport.
- HB Nitkin Group”™s 2600 Post Road in Southport, the Nitkin property with the highest occupancy rate.
“What we”™re not seeing so much anymore is fashion and retail,” Nitkin said. “Retail congregates on Greenwich Avenue, in New York City and in the malls. But there aren”™t a lot of fashion retailers opening in small towns.”
Westport”™s Playhouse Square has the lowest occupancy rate of the properties in the company”™s portfolio, while a company-owned Southport property at 2600 Post Road has maintained 100 percent occupancy for a number of years.
The bulk of the firm”™s portfolio consists of the retail and fashion districts of Greenwich and Westport. Nitkin, who took up two large projects in Hartford and Greenwich when her husband fell ill in 2006, said the highest valued projects include the new Front Street District in Hartford, the Shops at Somerset Square in Glastonbury and Greenwich Avenue retail in Greenwich.
Nitkin, who took over the business after Bradley Nitkin died in 2009, said the plan is to further invest in Hartford through a multiphase redevelopment project, which includes a restaurant-and-entertainment setting built in 2011; a 121-unit apartment building, which is under construction; and the third phase, which would create 20,000 square feet of retail in the years to come.
HB Nitkin Group, which maintains 13 properties in its portfolio, has an overall 92 percent occupancy rate. Its 80,000-square-foot Greenwich Financial Center possesses 65,000 square feet of office space, with tenants, including Morgan Stanley, and 15,000 square feet of street retail, including its anchor tenant Soul Cycle.
Although Nitkin said the properties in her company”™s portfolio don”™t accommodate many startups, she is willing to accept individuals who are pursuing another startup idea after leaving their own businesses.
But, she suggested, “Make sure you put in a tenant who has staying power ”” someone who is a stronger tenant, credit worthy and whose business isn”™t going to be affected by other Internet businesses.”
In the next five years, Nitkin Group plans to focus on remaining a family-owned business and buying more developments to turn into residential units. In commercial real estate, Helen Nitkin said, the three biggest areas of business growth and development are in the food, entertainment and health industries.
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