By Jodi Hausen,Staff Writer

FARMINGTON – After nearly five years on the market, the Knowlton-McLeary building on Church Street has been sold to Massachusetts developers.

Stephen Braconi and his partner Joseph Carlson purchased the former printing facility Jan. 25 for $150,000 from Hodgco Inc.

Peggy Hodgkins, principal for Hodgco, said she is pleased with the sale, although somewhat disappointed that the town will probably lose tax dollars since the former manufacturing business had a high valuation. Plans for the structure most likely are not manufacturing.

Braconi, a general contractor from Duxbury on Cape Cod, said Thursday that opportunities for development are pretty slim in Sandwich, Mass., where Carlson’s financial planning firm is based. So they started looking elsewhere. Braconi saw an ad for land in Farmington about six years ago in the Boston Globe. Though the partners did not buy the property behind the Farmington Fairgrounds at the time, they discovered the town.

“I think good things are going to happen (in Farmington),” said Braconi. With the courthouse, the university and Wal-Mart, “the Farmington area will turn in the not-so-distant future,” he said.

With that in mind, the partners had purchased several properties in the area other than the building in the historic district. They also own 20 acres near Health Quest on Wilton Road, one acre near Franklin Somerset Credit Union and 30 acres on Route 2 in Wilton near Wilson Pond.

Braconi has been a contractor and developer for about 30 years developing mostly subdivisions and single-family homes. He has been working with Carlson for about seven years.

He said no definite plans have yet been made for the building, although he said the 1,200-square-foot wooden section will be renovated into offices soon.

“We’re going to try to preserve the integrity of the building,” he said. “It’s got a lot of charm and character. I love the look of it.”

As for the rest of the building, he said, it’s “got good bones.” It needs rewiring and roofing work, and the developers plan to replace windows with insulated ones. The first floor of the larger brick section will probably become offices, and apartments are being considered for the second. Their other properties “are in a holding pattern.”

“We can’t hurry,” Braconi said. “You don’t want the drum major three miles ahead of the parade and the parade’s not quite set up in Farmington yet.”