A once-contaminated stretch of industrial land beside Berlin's train station has been transformed into a 72-unit apartment complex with a brewery, a cafe and a handful of small professional offices, capping a project that took eight years from first conversations to completion. The final building, known as 55 Steele Blvd., opened in September 2026 with 52 apartments, finishing out what developers call Steele Center in the town's Kensington section.
A Brownfield Becomes a Transit-Oriented Village
According to the Hartford Courant, developers redeveloped five acres of contaminated, abandoned industrial land alongside a freight rail siding to build the project, and the cleanup took longer than expected. The 80,000-square-foot development sits next to the Berlin Train Station and the Hartford Line, according to Steele Center's own project website. Steele Boulevard itself runs from Farmington Avenue to the new Berlin train station, as Hartford Business Journal reported when construction was still underway.
The Hartford Line launched commuter train service in 2018, the same year Newport Realty Group's Mark Lovley and Tony Valenti began discussing what would eventually become Steele Center, per the Courant's reporting. The timing was no accident: the Dannel Malloy administration had prioritized transit-oriented residential development as a goal of the new commuter rail service, the paper notes. Construction progress was slowed along the way by construction inflation and pandemic-era supply-chain disruption, though the same obstacles were described differently in an earlier interview — Hartford Business Journal quoted Newport Realty saying that once the company got past the supply issues, it was totally back on track.
Four Buildings, One Finished Complex
Steele Center now totals 72 newly constructed apartments across four buildings, the project's website states. The final piece, 55 Steele Blvd., includes 52 apartments, a resident fitness room and a dedicated sales office, per the same site. The other three buildings were already occupied by the time Newport Realty wrapped up construction on the fourth, according to Hartford Business Journal, which also reported that the development's financing included Thomaston Savings Bank alongside supplemental backing for 55 Steele Boulevard from Build for CT, a financing vehicle sponsored by the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority, per a release from the Capitol Region Council of Governments.
Unit counts for Steele Center have shifted over the years of planning. An earlier 2020 announcement described the project as having 76 market-rate apartments alongside a medical office and retail space, according to NBC Connecticut, while a separate account from Hartford Business Journal described 80 market-rate apartments planned across multiple buildings. The Courant reports the project pivoted away from some of its originally planned two-bedroom units toward smaller apartments as the market shifted — a change Hartford Business Journal also described in its own coverage of the project's design evolution.
Studios and One-Bedrooms Leading the Leasing Pace
Leasing data cited by the Courant shows Steele Center was 50% occupied after eight weeks open, with studio and one-bedroom apartments renting fastest while two-bedroom units saw slower demand. One-bedroom, one-bath apartments are listed from $1,900, and two-bedroom units start at $2,300 or more, according to the Courant's report. The newest building currently offers no one-month lease incentives, even as the broader Connecticut rental market has leaned into such perks — the Hartford Courant separately reported that move-in incentives are becoming more prevalent statewide, with Jasko Development's Avner Krohn noting there are concessions being offered now that weren't there before, and not as much double-digit rent growth as the market has cooled from its peak.
Every Steele Center apartment includes high ceilings, granite countertops, stainless-steel energy-efficient appliances and in-unit washers and dryers, per the Courant. The project's own marketing echoes much of that same unit list, describing an open feel, large kitchens, elevator access and ample parking across the four buildings.
A Micro-Village of Local Businesses
Steele Center's commercial side was built as what the Courant calls a micro-village of shops and professional offices rather than a conventional retail strip. Current tenants include Cafe Busy Bean, the Hop Haus, a hair salon, an art studio, a law office and a financial services office, according to the Courant's reporting. That mix reflects a deliberate strategy from Newport Realty Group, which is based in Southington and owned by Tony Valenti and Mark Lovley: the company keeps its retail footprint moderate, divides it into mostly small storefronts with affordable rents, and targets mom-and-pop tenants rather than national chains, the Courant reports. Newport Realty also reduces tenant costs by omitting pools, large fitness centers and most administrative fees, per the same account.
Valenti told the Courant the company favors towns with populations of 25,000 to 35,000 with cohesive commerce, naming Cheshire and Newington as good fits for Newport's approach, and said the developers prefer projects within a 20-minute drive of their office. He added he would take on another similar project after finishing Steele Center. Berlin's economic development director, Kevin Bielmeier, described Steele Center as a major community benefit, according to the Courant, and the project received local tax incentives and state aid. A Berlin town document shows a five-year tax abatement tied to a 60-unit residential building was set not to begin until a separate commercial building on Steele Boulevard was developed, though the full terms of that arrangement were not detailed in the available excerpt.
Part of a Wider Pattern Near Connecticut Rail Stops
Steele Center's phased build-out — one building at a time, as Newport Realty had planned, per the Courant — mirrors a broader trend of apartment-and-retail development clustering around Connecticut rail stations. In Windsor Center, developer Gregory Vaca built Founders Square, where 70 apartments are already on the market and 50 more are under construction, with all five ground-floor retail spaces already leased, according to the Hartford Courant's coverage of that project. Founders Square set aside 24 apartments as affordable, with the remaining 96 units renting at market rates of up to $2,000 a month, and its commercial spaces range from 700 to 1,500 square feet, built for small local businesses rather than chains.
Further north, Connecticut is investing $65 million to move the Windsor Locks train station back to the downtown area, according to Connecticut Public, as part of a planned development there that will include 120 apartments, many of them affordable, along with 4,000 square feet of ground-floor retail. Gov. Ned Lamont has said the state planned to increase rail service between Hartford, Windsor, Windsor Locks and Springfield, with a possible Hartford-to-Boston connection within eight to 10 years, though that timeline remains conditional. Not every town has embraced the same commercial ambitions: Portland official Dan Bertram told town officials in 2024 that the market could not absorb the commercial square footage once planned there, and Washington Prime told South Windsor officials that same year that housing was feasible on a 46-acre tract near Buckland Hills Mall while major commercial expansion made no financial sense.
