The Camelot, located at 900 Farmington Avenue, is now complete and has added 44 units of affordable housing to West Hartford’s inventory.

By Ronni Newton

Officials celebrated the grand opening of The Camelot on Monday morning – marking the completion of a 100% affordable housing development project that is being touted as a shining example of what is possible through vision and successful collaboration for the good of a community.

“Today marks a major milestone for our team,” Lewis Brown, principal of Honeycomb Real Estate Partners, said Monday morning to a community room packed with local and state leaders as well as those who were involved in the project in ways large and small.

Brown and Steve Caprio of Honeycomb partnered with other local developers – Corridor Ventures, Vesta Corporation, and Joseph Vallone of Vallone Ventures – to bring to fruition an opportunity that Vallone first pitched to him in January 2022 after speaking with the property’s former owner.

Brown’s brother, Hagan Brown, is one of the principals of Corridor Ventures, and the West Hartford natives were already very familiar with the 900 Farmington Avenue property. At one point the restaurant space was Pancho McGee’s – and Brown said that was where he and his brother loved to celebrate their birthdays when they were growing up in West Hartford.

Located at 900 Farmington Avenue, The Camelot occupies a prime piece of property on the eastern edge of West Hartford Center, about two-thirds of an acre that formerly housed the rundown 1960s-era West Hartford Inn and the vacant Los Imperios restaurant and bar. Within days, residents will begin moving into the brand new units of affordable housing – 44 beautiful and modern light-filled apartments that feature stainless steel appliances, granite countertops, gray subway tile backsplashes, and luxury vinyl flooring.

The building includes a fitness center and computer room, all of which is included in the residents’ rent. It’s also accessible – on the bus line, across the street from the Trout Brook Trail, and an easy walk to West Hartford Center, Blue Back Square, and many other area businesses.

The Camelot’s 44 apartments are a combination of new construction on the portion of the property that was most recently Los Imperios, and an adaptive re-use and renovation of what was formerly the 52-unit West Hartford Inn. The new portion includes 20 two-bedroom units measuring roughly 985 square feet each, as well as community space, while the former hotel portion has 20 one-bedroom apartments of roughly 525 square feet each, and four two-bedroom units.

 

The entire development is affordable housing, with 13 of the units reserved for residents earning less than 30% of the area median income (AMI), with the remainder split between those at 50% AMI and 80% AMI – a range of income levels that translates into roughly $30,000 per year to $80,000 per year, Brown said. Not only is the development 100% affordable, but 100% of the units are already in the process of being leased.

“Critical, critical housing,” Brown said. “This development is in direct response to the state’s, and the Town of West Hartford’s commitment to expanding affordable housing and building a more inclusive and sustainable community, not just here in West Hartford but we are seeing these type of developments, thankfully, all across the State of Connecticut.”

Brown didn’t want to build market rate housing or a boutique hotel on the property. From the beginning, he said his vision was to build affordable housing even though the projects require complex financing to be workable.

“I have never encountered the openness, and the open arms and the receptivity to this type of development,” Brown said, expressing thanks to Mayor Shari Cantor, members of the West Hartford Town Council who were in attendance, Economic Development Coordinator Kristen Gorski, Town Manager Rick Ledwith, Town Planner Todd Dumais, the West Hartford Housing Authority, state agencies, and many others. The town’s support extended to partnering to obtain a $998,000 Brownfield grant for environmental rehabilitation and remediation of the site, and providing a $3 million grant through an affordable housing fund established by the Town of West Hartford through the use of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds in December 2022.

He also praised West Hartford’s Design Review Advisory Committee (DRAC) for their input in three study sessions. “I will tell you with a straight face that this building would not look as good as it looks today without DRAC input,” Brown said.

“We look forward to The Camelot becoming not just a place to live, but a cornerstone of community life in West Hartford,” Brown said.

“West Hartford is leading the way,” Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz said Monday. “There is a reason that people from all over Connecticut and beyond want to come here, and it’s because West Hartford is an inclusive and diverse place … and because they offer all types of housing, and they make affordable housing accessible, and they make it a priority.”

What West Hartford has done with projects like The Camelot, Bysiewicz said, “is a lesson for every municipality across the State of Connecticut.”

Cantor said that when she became mayor, nine years ago, transforming this particular property to homes “and to have it be affordable and accessible” was one of her first priorities. Brown, she said, had the “heart and commitment, and was of West Hartford and for West Hartford … and had all the pieces to put people together to make this work.” And putting those pieces together – like the “Tetris” design of the mural that was installed over the weekend on the east side of the building – “it really shows the amount of organization and commitment, those pieces that come together, to make a very diverse, vibrant home.”

Nandini Natarajan, CEO of the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority (CHFA), and also a West Hartford resident, likened the layered financing that it takes to build affordable housing to creating a cake, or lasagna. “I like both,” she said.

“The Camelot is a shining example of what happens when all of us can come together, and when public and private can work together,” Natarajan said. “CHFA provided the financing, but it’s more than that. It’s a tremendous amount of coordination, of sharing of resources. … Camelot is not just apartments, it’s 44 new homes for families or singles, for seniors who want to live in the town they’ve lived in their whole lives. And it really is a wonderful testament to the community that we are creating here in West Hartford,” she said, adding that she hopes this type of progress can be continued throughout the state.

Binu Chandy, director of OBRD, the division that handles Brownfields for the Department of Economic and Community Development, expressed her appreciation for the flow of funding that makes DECD’s grant program for these types of projects possible. To date, she said, they have awarded $150 million in Brownfield funding, in support of roughly 150 projects that have added approximately 6,500 units of housing on sites that were once part of the state’s manufacturing history.

“This 44-unit project is making a major contribution,” Chandy said. “It signals hope that one day there will be an ample supply of quality, affordable housing, where one can afford to settle in a great Connecticut community like West Hartford and call it their own. A community to work, live, and play, where they can grow their families and send their children to quality schools.”

Real estate development is a complex process, Vallone said. “I always say it’s 40,000 steps to the top, and always only one step to the bottom. So you find a project and you start to climb steps.” It takes a seller who is willing to be patient, the town, the state, and much more, he said. “I feel we’ve been very fortunate. We’re in the right town. We have the right support,” he said, praising the mayor and town officials and staff, and so many others involved in the project.

Seila Mosquera-Bruno, commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Housing, also praised the collaboration and partnerships that made The Camelot a reality, a place that residents of various income levels will be able to afford. “That creates the foundation for our families, that creates the foundation for our towns, builds the community,” she said.

“It’s a collaboration, and it’s also compromise, and intentional,” Mosquera-Bruno said. “West Hartford got it right.”

Josh Greenblatt of Vesta Corporation said, “We view affordable housing as essential housing. … It’s housing for teachers and other service workers that teach our children, that keep our community safe. It’s housing for baristas, retail staff, other hospitality workers that work in the shops, restaurants of Blue Back Square and West Hartford Center. It’s housing for nurses and medical technicians that keep us all healthy, and that’s critical – and critical that as a community we offer this type of housing in prime locations like this.”

Before leaving to form Honeycomb, Brown spent more than 16 years working at Vesta. Greenblatt said he is sure that this won’t be their last project, and gifted Brown with a framed menu from The Camelot – the original restaurant that was located on the Farmington Avenue site.

Before the ribbon cutting, Hagan Brown of Corridor Ventures closed out the ceremony, noting that when he and his partner, Dan Joseph, first got involved in The Camelot project with his younger brother, he quickly realized that it would not be in their usual front row position, but that it would be exciting.

“I quickly realized that we would have role in something that was going to be transformative and bigger than everything that has really come before,” Hagan Brown said. “Providing housing is one thing, but providing housing in the community that you grew up with, several blocks from where you actually lived, where your mom still lives, where I started a business, most importantly with my brother, and being able to do something in partnership that was going to not necessarily transform the world, but was certainly going to transform a neighborhood and a community and be bigger than itself.”

While it may seem like the project took a long time to bring to fruition, in fact there was no time wasted once the financing of “The Camelot” closed in December 2023. In January 2024 construction commenced on the project and it remained virtually on track throughout the duration for the stated spring 2025 opening.

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