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A pair of vacant office buildings in Connecticut have been acquired for redevelopment as multifamily housing. In a joint venture between developers Saber-Hightower LLC and Granoff Real Estate, 101 and 201 Merritt 7, in the Merritt 7 office park in the New York City suburb of Norwalk, Connecticut, will be the sites of the project.
While the acquisition price was not publicly disclosed, the project is budgeted at $120 million, according to a report by WRE News.The two buildings are eight-storeys long and encompass 511,000 square feet with more than 1,300 parking spaces. They will be transformed into 286 loft-style apartments, with the first units expected to be available as soon as 2027. Among these, 26 units will be designated affordable under Norwalk's inclusionary requirements.
The unit mix comprises 42 studios, 167 one-bedrooms, and 77 two-bedrooms, averaging 983 square feet.
Most units include dens suitable for home offices, nurseries, or storage. Built in 1980 and 1982, the site carries an as-of-right residential density of up to 564 units, but Saber-Hightower’s plan calls for 286 loft-style units, under Norwalk's 2023 comprehensive rezoning.Moreover, the properties will also receive a resort-style amenity area featuring a swimming pool with cabanas, dog runs, a putting green and a bocce court.
Bank OZK has provided a $ 75.5 million senior construction loan to support the conversion of the buildings. The two eight-story buildings were the first of six built in the Merritt 7 office park, at the northeast corner of the Merritt Parkway and Route 7. Both buildings are steps from the Merritt 7 Metro-North station on the Danbury Branch, giving residents rail access to Stamford, Greenwich, and Manhattan alongside direct highway connections.Rather than tearing down the buildings, they are being rebuilt for space and opportunity. “While some developers may have looked at these buildings as a teardown-and-rebuild opportunity, we saw the value in reusing what was there,” said Greg Belew, co-founder of Saber-Hightower. “With 11-foot ceilings, wall-to-wall windows, and simple floor plates, it was apparent to us that we had great bones to work with. The best approach to adaptive reuse is to keep it simple.
We are making no structural modifications to either building, and that lets us control costs and mitigate risk.”"Because we had so much space to work with, we can give residents more generously sized layouts than a ground-up building would allow," said Marty Berger, co-founder of Saber-Hightower. "There is unmet demand in this market for residents who want a more sophisticated experience."Last January, the other four buildings within the Merritt 7 office park were sold for $58.5 million.
That portion of the office park includes the headquarters for companies including Xerox, Terex, Emcor, Hearst Connecticut Media Group, Common Fund, Datto/Kaseya, MBI, and LBB Specialities.Saber-Hightower, led by Marty Berger and Greg Belew, formed the partnership with Granoff Real Estate, an affiliate of Granoff Architects, which serves as project architect. Granoff Architects designed the conversion of The Mill in the Glenville section of Greenwich; a 1980s office building and adjacent historic mill converted to residential; the property traded for $97.5 million in 2025."The Saber-Hightower and Granoff teams integrated seamlessly as true co-developers," said Rich Granoff, founder and managing principal of Granoff Real Estate. "Given continued weakness in regional suburban office markets, we look forward to exploring other conversion opportunities with Saber-Hightower."
