360 Main Street

Hartford developer Carlos Mouta admits to relishing a challenge.

The lifelong city resident and businessman had hands full five years ago, when he undertook the $5 million renovation and expansion of the tired, 1960s-era shopping plaza at Park and Laurel streets that was once home to a Bradlees department store, Stop & Shop supermarket and a handful of other unmemorable tenants.

"People thought I was crazy, '' Mouta said of the public's response to his reclamation investment.

His transformed Pope Commons brims today with a Family Dollar store, auto-parts retailer, wine shop, nail salon and others. The city followed up by repaving and beautifying the worn-out stretch of Park Street that fronted Pope Commons.

Now, Mouta, owner of other Parkville apartments, is applying his same determination and vision to reposition a 1970s-era apartment building he bought in 2002 on downtown's southern fringe, to ride coattails of mounting demand for center-city apartments.

Most of the more than 1, 000 or so apartments converted, or in the midst of being so, from former office space are within the formal boundaries of the city's central business district.

Mouta's 360 Main Street Apartments are well within walking distance of downtown employers, restaurants, night-life and other private and public amenities. But in relative terms, many of the converted apartments are located much closer than 360 Main's.

To overcome that gap, Mouta is creating at least a dozen units whose floor space is one-half to two-thirds that of 360 Main's 700-square-foot to 900-square-foot units. These "micro-apartments, '' Mouta says, address a growing need for smaller, more affordable shelter.

Rebuffing as too costly the injection of state financial assistance to redo 360 Main's 108 units, Mouta has been his own contractor for the nine-story building's renovation. When finished, it will have 115 living units, of which 13 will be micro-apartments, he said.

The five, 435-square-foot, one-bedroom micro-apartments completed to date have been rented for $1, 025 a month to takers who include a Travelers worker and other blue-collar tenants earnings about $40, 000 a year, he said.

Eight more "studio" micro units under construction will be even smaller, with 300 square feet and rent for $750 to $775 per month. Rents for most of 360 Main's larger apartments range from $950 to $1, 350.

But his biggest concern, he admits, is that no one knows that his building, too, is being updated and modernized with many of the same conveniences as 179 Allyn St., 777 Main St., The Grand on Ann, and The Spectra Boutique Apartments.

His units, too, have stainless steel appliances, marble countertops, faux wood flooring, and extra spacious, handicapped-accessible bathrooms.