Former troubled restaurant building sold to NJ developer

Norwich — The building that had housed the former Mai Thai restaurant at 327 Laurel Hill Ave. was sold for the second time in three years, to a New Jersey-based developer, Lyman Real Estate announced Wednesday.

The building sold by former owner Rosdev Capital Funding LP for $250,000 to Elliot Censor, under the name Cabinfield Investments LLC, of Lakewood, N.J., according to Ron Lyman, CEO of Lyman Real Estate. Kevin Censor of Randall Realtors in Norwich represented the buyer.

Originally built as a school in 1900, the 9,272-squarefoot, two-story brick building has had a checkered past in recent years. The building housed various restaurants and was proposed for a martini bar and lounge in 2016 that never materialized. Lyman brokered the sale in 2016, when Rosdev Capital Funding purchased the building for $350,000.

When it was the Mai Thai restaurant, on June 24, 2012, patron Donna Richardson was fatally shot and her niece, Crystal Roderick, was wounded when David Grant of Norwich fired shots into the crowd on the back deck at closing time. Grant was found guilty of first-degree manslaughter and first-degree assault on April 1, 2015.

Mai Thai closed immediately after the shooting and the bar owners surrendered their liquor license a month later.

The building had been vacant since then.