WINDSOR — Sardilli Produce and Dairy Co. is one step closer to opening its planned distribution center in town after buying the former Konica Minolta warehouse at 550 Marshall Phelps Road last fall, town documents show.
The family-owned Hartford food vendor purchased the roughly 226,000-square-foot facility and about 30 surrounding acres on Oct. 2 for $9.5 million from The Fremont Group, a West Hartford-based private investment firm, according to property records compiled and made public online through the town assessor’s office. The Fremont Group had owned the parcel for the last four years of Konica Minolta’s tenancy, from 2015 to 2019.
Sardilli — having outgrown its existing distribution and storage space at 212 Locust St. in Hartford — initially planned to construct a new, 202,000-square-foot produce warehouse on unused farmland on South Water Street in East Windsor. About one year ago, however, the company began eyeing the Konica complex, and by September, the Windsor Town Council had worked out a tax abatement plan for Sardilli that averages out to a 40 percent tax break over five years.
At the time, town officials said they expected Sardilli to renovate and expand the building to suit its needs before relocating about 115 employees from Hartford. They also said they had been told that the distributor would add around 50 new jobs over the coming years to keep pace with rising demand for its fruits, vegetables, and dry goods.
Sardilli packages and delivers food to restaurants, caterers, casinos, country clubs, hospitals, hotels, schools, retirement communities, and other clients in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Westchester County, New York.
The warehouse at 550 Marshall Phelps Road has sat mostly unused since early 2019, when Konica Minolta, a business equipment supplier specializing in industrial imaging products, laid off over 200 workers there. Repurposing the building as a food storage center will likely require installing refrigerated rooms and additional loading bays.
The company that would eventually grow into Sardilli Produce and Dairy began as a Southington fruit stand, opened by Guido Sardilli in 1955. The business made its name selling fresh produce, flowers, and Christmas trees, and in 1975 Don Sardilli expanded into wholesaling, which would eventually become the family’s primary commercial focus.
Five years later, the Sardillis closed their fruit stand and moved into the Hartford Regional Market on Reserve Road in the capital city’s South End.
In 1989, the company moved again to its current home, a 30,000-square-foot facility on Locust Street.
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