New York City firm buys former Sears property at Crystal Mall
Nov. 8—WATERFORD — A New York City-based real estate investment and development company acquired the former Sears property at Crystal Mall for $2,781,000, town land records show.
The buyer, 850 Hartford Turnpike LLC, registered late last month with the Connecticut Secretary of the State, listing as its business address ACHS Management Corp., 1412 Broadway, New York City.
ACHS Management, a division of A & H Acquisitions, offered the highest bid for the 10.6-acre property in an online auction held in mid-September. The high bidder's identity became public with the recent filing of a deed with the town clerk. The deed shows the company bought the property from Seritage SRC Finance, a spinoff of Sears.
Sears Roebuck and Co. was the original owner of the property, which includes a two-story, 155,906-square-foot building, a parking lot and outdoor lighting. The Sears store at the location closed in 2018.
According to its website, A & H Acquisitions, founded decades ago by the Adjmi family, has acquired more than 100 properties in "high density retail driven areas in New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Boston, Florida, Los Angeles, Chicago among others."
Attempts to obtain comment from an officer of the company were unsuccessful.
The September auction was the second time the former Sears property was put out to bid. It was initially auctioned in May, at which time most of the rest of Crystal Mall sold in a separate auction for more than $9.5 million. It was reported at the time that the former Sears property drew a high bid of about $4 million, but the high bidder failed to close on the deal.
In 2022, the former Sears property was appraised at $4.4 million and assessed at $3.1 million, land records show.
Namdar Realty Group, of Long Island, which acquired the main portion of Crystal Mall as well as the adjacent LongHorn Steakhouse and Olive Garden restaurant properties, has continued to operate the mall, much of which is vacant.
A former Macy's space at the mall is owned by CRJ Waterford, an entity controlled by Charles Robert Jones, a Tennessee developer, who bought the property for $4 million in 2021.
First Selectman Rob Brule has said he considered the sale of the former Sears property to be "pivotal" to the repurposing of Crystal Mall.
Neither Brule nor Jonathan Mullen, the town's planning director, could be reached to comment Wednesday.
