The 15-story office tower rising above Sigourney Street in Hartford drew attention in the early 2000s when it was studied as a potential “sick building” after state workers complained of coughing, asthma and other health problems associated with allergies to mold and bad indoor air.
Now, the structure — hugging a prominent bend along Interstate 84 — is again in the limelight for another dubious reason: graffiti.
In recent weeks, graffiti appeared a long the roof line of 25 Sigourney St. and has started to slowly descend along on the different sides of the 1980s building.
Hartford Mayor Arunan Arulampalam said Monday he has seen the graffiti and has fielded complaints about it.
“It’s not the image that we want in the city,” Arulampalam said. “We strongly encourage folks to create art in designated art spaces. We have a graffiti area in Heaven skate park but we ask people to respect the city and respect the neighbors and respect private property.”
Arulampalam said the graffiti on the Sigourney Street building is a high profile example of what happens when a building is left “vacant and unsecured for a number of years.”
It was not immediately clear Monday if 25 Sigourney St. has been cited by the city for blight violations.
The building’s owner, Florida businessman Casey Askar, did not immediately return a call seeking comment Monday. Askar purchased the building in 2020.
The real estate investor who holds the commercial note on the property said Monday that Askar and an associated partnership, ASWH LLC defaulted on a $1 million loan repayment in February, 2023.
“Despite the plans to develop the property into commercial office space, Mr. Askar and ASWH appear to have abandoned the property entirely,” William H. Coons III, the real estate investor, said, in a statement. “The building has had reports of fires, vandalism and the entire top floor is covered with graffiti that is plainly visible from the highway.”
The building also is in litigation in both Connecticut and Florida, Coons said.
Coons said he wants to resolve the court dispute and possibly reclaim “the Sigourney Street property so it can be rehabilitated into a commercial property that will provide valuable jobs and services to the city and people of Hartford.”
There were high hopes for the office tower at Sigourney Street and Capitol Avenue when it opened as the Xerox Centre in the late 1980s, but the building never attracted big corporate leases to the city, as boom times soon went bust.
The office tower passed off the city tax rolls in 1994 after it was bought by the state for offices. The state spent $6 million to seal the brick building, replace the roof and remove wallboard and carpet damaged by leaking water. In 2004, the building was declared clean and watertight. Eventually, state workers were relocated and the building sat empty for more than two years overlooking I-84.
In 2020, the state sold the structure for $1 million and Askar took a controlling stake. Askar planned to launch a renovation with $5 million of his own funds to ramp up improvements to start attracting potential tenants. Askar boldly predicted the project could reach $30 million.
City officials also saw the building — now in a no-man’s land of confusing streets alongside the I-84 viaduct — potentially emerging as a way of connecting the Frog Hollow and Parkville neighborhoods.
But within weeks of the purchase, the pandemic struck, leaving a legacy of eroding demand for office space in Hartford and across the country as more employees spent some — or even all of the work week at home.
Askar said he owned more than 2 million square feet of office and other commercial real estate space in markets such as Detroit and counted Google among his tenants in 2020.
Kenneth R. Gosselin can be reached at kgosselin@courant.com.
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