Smart Growth for Vernon, CT
Tri-City Plaza on the market

By Howard French
Journal Inquirer
January 20, 2006

Connecticut real estate veteran Max Javit is selling one of his first ventures, Tri-City Plaza in Vernon, a shopping center he built in 1963 and has owned ever since.

The sale was announced on the Web site of Boston-based real estate investment form Spaulding & Slye.

The plaza includes 300,038 square feet of retail space, and has an asking price of $51.1 million, according to the listing. It is a Vernon landmark and has been a staple shopping center for the town at the busy intersection of routes 83 and 30, just off Interstate 84, for more than four decades.

Javit could not be reached Friday for comment.

Tri-City in 2004 landed the largest supermarket in the New York-based Price Chopper chain. The 99,000-square-foot store includes a play center, an in-store Starbucks coffeehouse, a florist, and a pharmacy, and is open 24 hours a day.

Plaza spokeswoman Gayle Deneen at the time of the opening said Price Chopper is going to be "a powerhouse in Tri-City." Deneen also could not be reached Friday.

West Hartford real estate investor Max Javit's Javit Asset Partners, which owns Tri-City Plaza, also added an expanded outlet of the Massachusetts-based TJX Companies Inc. to the plaza in 2005, occupying the former Adams Super Food Store, at the south end of the plaza. TJX already operated a TJ Maxx store next to the former Adams grocery store, which closed in 2003.

The expanded store combined the existing TJ Maxx with a HomeGoods outlet.

The plaza sits on 24.1 acres and also includes a Staples office products store, a Lenscrafters optical store, and a General Nutrition Corp. shop, among others. It also has outbuildings including a Denny's restaurant.

"Located on Interstate 84 in the metro-Hartford market, the plaza's tenants consistently post strong sales," the Spaulding & Slye listing claims.

" Tri-City Plaza is a very well located asset with an impressive tenant roster and tremendous upside potential," the listing concludes.

The plaza also is consistently at the top of the town's list of taxpayers, routinely enriching town coffers to the tune of nearly $600,000 per year, according to the Vernon Grand List.