Real estate developer had big heart, vision
Marc Levine was a real estate developer with a vision. He loved Hartford and reviving old mills. He also believed that providing good, affordable housing was essential.
He combined all these goals in the work he did over nearly five decades, winning awards for historic preservation and accolades from many in the housing community.
“He was catalytic in Hartford,” said Arthur Anderson, founder and former president of Imagineers, a property management company. “He certainly left a significant footprint in Hartford as well as throughout Connecticut. He was a kind, intelligent developer.”
Marc S. Levine died Oct. 16 of lung disease after a prolonged illness. He was 77 and lived in West Hartford.
In Hartford, he is known for the creation of ArtSpace, an apartment complex for artists, as well as the restoration of two former department stores on Main Street: Sage Allen. which was turned into apartments and a parking garage, and Brown Thomson, with its distinctive Art Deco façade, into a residential hotel and office space.
“He was a visionary in how he put projects together,” said Sara Bronin, chairwoman of the Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation, which honored Levine several times. “For the preservation community, it’s a big loss. He had a way of doing projects that others in the preservation community wouldn’t touch. Everything he did was a risk, and he did it all very masterfully.”
Earlier in his career, he had tackled the challenges involved in turning former textile mills into housing. Those projects involved environmental problems, site issues and navigating the complex system of restrictions that surround public funding sources, including historic, state and federal tax credit programs. When he was approached about Roosevelt Mill in Vernon, he agreed to help its owner overcome the many problems the project faced.
“Mills are the hardest rehabs,” said Brad Schide, a real estate preservation consultant who works for the Connecticut Trust. “There were many questions along the way, lots of struggles. Marc was easy to work with.”
During his career, Levine developed many affordable housing projects.
“It was very intentional,” said Jennifer Benson, an associate in Marc S. Levine Real Estate Interests. “There’s a feel-good component that you’re helping people get housing who couldn’t always afford it. There’s a real sense of purpose.”
“It’s less profit, and less risk, but by its very nature, there’s a larger market,” said Anderson. “It’s a niche and a cause and it’s a service. It’s a business, for sure, but it’s a business that’s inspired by one’s nature.”
ArtSpace came about after Levine heard about an innovative way to support artists and rescue dilapidated buildings. The daughter of Peter Shapiro, an acquaintance, was living in an affordable artist’s colony in St. Paul, Minn., and told her dad it was a shame Hartford didn’t have an equivalent. Several nonprofit organizations had tried to create something similar, but the project was stalled at the time Levine and Anderson became involved.
Levine “had the expertise and the experience to bring it home,” Shapiro said. “He was the force that brought things together.” Then-Hartford Mayor Mike Peters supported the concept, and so did then-Gov. John Rowland. In 1996, the derelict former car dealership and office supply building opened with 46 low- and moderate-rate rentals with a gallery or performance space on the first floor.
Levine was born February 24, 1941, to Bessie Koplovitz Levine and David Levine, and grew up in Meriden. His mother was a teacher and his father owned Pinnards luncheonette, where Marc learned to make floats and sundaes at an early age. He was an only child and grew up surrounded by childless aunts and an uncle who doted on him, along with his parents and grandparents, his daughter Pamela said. In adulthood, he discarded his tough guy teenage persona — leather jacket, cigarette pack in a T-shirt sleeve and slicked back hair — in favor of simple but stylish clothes. As he grew older, he stood out in a group, distinguished by his large mass of gray — later white — curly hair and booming baritone voice.
He attended Maloney High School, then Brown University and Georgetown Law Center. He was married soon after college to Barbra Rottner, whom he met in a Jewish youth group. They moved to Hartford and he began practicing law in Manchester with his father-in-law, before working for a real estate developer.
His first marriage ended in divorce, and in the late 1980s, he met Tamara Kagan Weiner, a Hartford lawyer, after her father, also a lawyer, suggested that Levine ask her to represent him in some business dealings. “She does that kind of law,” he said. Legal representation turned into romance, and they married in 1993. Tamara Levine is continuing to carry on his real estate activities.
Friends, children and business associates were all on the receiving end of Levine’s fanatical pursuit of grammatical correctness. His friends called him a crazy grammarian, and a mock award, “The Golden Comma” was prominently situated in his office. Levine would return an email to its sender with errors highlighted, and the content of the email unaddressed – even on business matters. Neither visitors nor anyone in a casual conversation were spared his corrections, and not even his 9-year-old granddaughter escaped his red pen. Years after she sent the letter, Levine returned it, all its errors marked up. “He couldn’t resist,” said his daughter Pamela.
Levine was known for his largesse. He liked to tip well, and he took an interest in people he met, from a restaurant server to his children’s friends. Quietly, he helped others, with money or advice or referrals.
A law school acquaintance called in distress. “They hadn’t been close, but Marc wanted to try to help him. It was emblematic of who he was,” Shapiro said. Another time, a business partner mentioned a friend who had died with few assets, and Levine asked, “How much?” for funeral expenses, said Anderson. “Anybody who needed anything, he would do his best.”
Levine enjoyed socializing at Salute or Dish, his favorite downtown spots, or entertaining at home. One of his maxims was “Life is 70 percent what you know, 20 percent who you know, and 10 percent not taking ‘no’ for an answer.”
“He would say smart things that would belie his work ethic, but he could be a tough guy,” Shapiro said. As his friends reached their 70s and slowed down at work, Levine kept up the pace. “This is fun,” he would tell people who urged him to travel more, work less.
Levine is survived by his wife, Tamara Levine; three children, Greg Levine, Pamela Miles and Abby Levine; two stepchildren, Ross Weiner and Elizabeth Miller; and nine grandchildren.
“He took on very challenging historic preservation projects because he had a strong aesthetic sense and knew the community would be well served by preserving buildings such as BrownThompson and Roosevelt Mill. He left the place better than he found it and not every developer can say that,” said Tom Condon, a former Courant editorial writer.