Thomas MacMillan Photo
Paul Bass Photo
Tenant Ballard said she sees better days ahead.
A high-stakes competition has broken out among developers — one of whom has teamed up with a just-retired city official, another with the son of a mayoral candidate — for the chance to redevelop the Dwight Gardens townhouses on Edgewood Avenue.
Six separate builders, including an arm of the housing authority, have submitted proposals to the city to purchase the largely trashed 80-unit complex across from Amistad Academy between Garden and Dwight streets.
The city is brokering a sale on behalf of Bridgeport developer Garfield Spencer. The federal government previously had foreclosed on the property in 2010 and sold it to the city, which in turn sold it to Spencer, despite his spotty financial record, on the condition that he make $6 million in repairs, $1 million of that coming from a city loan. He failed to make most of the repairs. The once-proud complex slid into further disrepair. Now only around 30 apartments remain occupied.
This is the latest sad turn in the history of an idealistic experiment. The complex was one of a host of federally supported housing cooperatives launched around town in the 1960s. The co-ops have one by one been failing in recent years and turned over to private owners. In the case of Dwight Gardens, tenants who had kept the place in nice shape for decades came within months of paying off the mortgage and owning it outright before losing it amid internal bickering and deferred maintenance. (Click here and here for stories about all that.) The debacle with city-chosen Spencer was the latest slap. (Spencer did not respond to a request for comment.)
Now the city hopes for a new day there. It asked developers to submit proposals for what they’d do with the property. Six came in, with varying visions.
No decision has been met, according to Cathy Schroeter, deputy director of local government’s Livable City Initiative (LCI), which is arranging the sale. Schroeter has asked the bidders to respond to a second set of questions by June 21, at which time a committee — to include a tenant as well as Alderman Frank Douglass — will review all the proposals.
Chief among the questions: How will the builders deal with temporarily relocating the tenants while giving the 44-year-old complex a makeover? Some bidders suggested housing tenants in some of the complex’s apartments while other units get renovated. Others suggested off-site relocations.
“I want to make sure they do the right thing by these tenants. They need to have a decent place to stay. They’ve been through a lot,” Douglass said.
“I’m just waiting until things get better,” said tenant Georgia Ballard, who moved into the co-ops in the mid-1970s. “It’s a good neighborhood. I like living there.” Ballard, who works as a school paraprofessional, said she’d like to see the rebuilt complex rent to people with a mix of income levels.
LCI’s Schroeter said she also wants the bidders to tell the city how they’ll proceed if their Plan A — which in seven of the eight cases involves some form of government support — falls through; she said the city wants to ensure work can begin promptly. She told the bidders as well to plan to pay an estimated $800,000 for the property. That will include paying back Spencer’s debts to the tax office, to the housing authority (which lent him money) and to the water and sewer authorities; and reimbursing Spencer for work he did put into the property (which the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development put at $481,000 in “hard” construction costs).
HUD (which has a stake in the property because it funded the original co-op) estimates that it needs a minimum of $3.7 million of work. (Click here to read its detailed assessment.) Most of the bidders propose spending considerably more on the rehab.
The six bidders, whose proposals the Independent reviewed on Monday, include:
Paul Bass Photo
• Pike International, which bills itself as the city’s largest private landowner. Pike has hired Andy Rizzo, who retired on March 29 as city building official, as project manager, according to its proposal. Pike — which performed a similar overhaul of another nearby failed co-op, Ethan Gardens — proposes to spend up to $7.5 million on a rehab of the complex. It proposes turning it into a mixed-income community. It also will not seek any government financing for the project, said principal Shmully Hecht (pictured). Hecht said he’d like to see students living alongside working low-income and middle-income families. “We can really bridge the neighborhoods. We can make upper Dwight and downtown one,” he said. “If we turn it into one demographic, it will be a wall. I want to build bridges in New Haven, not walls. New Haven needs bridges.” (City law does not prevent retired officials for returning to work on contracts with the city. According to city Corporation Counsel Victor Bolden, the relevant law is found in Section 12 5/8 – 5 of the city’s Code of Ordinances, which for one year bars former city workers from lobbying the city or from getting paid from a city contract “if the municipal employee or public official was directly involved in the preparation, procurement, awarding, performance, administration, or oversight of that city contract.”)
• A partnership between Municipal Capital Appreciation Partners (MCAP), a national developer, and Matthew Harp, the son of mayoral candidate/state Sen. Toni Harp. Matthew Harp runs his late father’s real-estate business in New Haven (in which Toni Harp says she plays no role). This proposal calls for using government tax credits and spending an estimated $23 million overhauling the complex. Matthew Harp said the group envisions a gut rehab. The proposal suggested applying 56 project-based (as opposed to mobile) federal Section 8 rent subsidies to Dwight Gardens apartments. The partnership said it would transfer existing Dwight Gardens tenants to other properties it owns in town during reconstruction. MCAP would play the lead role in the partnership, according to Harp.
• A local partnership between David Rubin and developer DJ Onorato of Off Broadway Management. Rubin said in an interview Tuesday that his proposal hinges on paying the city and other creditors directly for the property rather than paying any money directly to current owner Spencer. His proposal offered two scenarios, based on which kind of tax credits can be obtained. One scenario calls for spending $12 million on rehab, another, $8.5 million. The proposal envisions setting aside 10 percent of the units for “supportive housing” (subsidized apartments with on-site social services) perhaps for veterans; Rubin stressed that the partnership would first seek approval of any supportive housing idea from Amistad Academy and other neighborhood “stakeholders.” He said he would cap rents according to HUD guidelines. He said his group has all financing in place, so it could start work quickly.
• Glendower Group, a development arm of the Housing Authority of New Haven. The group, led by housing authority deputy chief Jimmy Miller, proposes spending $15 million to fully renovate all 80 units. It would set aside 49 apartments to be covered by the Rental Assistance Demonstration program; 11 as “working-family units” for renters earning between 50 and 80 percent of the area median income; and 20 “unassisted units for individuals with incomes not to exceed 115 percent” of that median. The proposal called for adding garages to the townhouse apartments, enlarging the second floors, putting in new bathrooms.
• WiSe Urban Development of Boston. The company proposes spending $11.4 million to create a mixed-income community. It promises to put in new siding, windows, heating systems, kitchens, bathrooms. Its plan calls for “selective demolition” and creating of a new playground surface with new equipment.
• Community Builders, which runs troubled New Haven housing developments like Kensington Square and Church Street South. It proposes spending $11.941 million to renovate Dwight Gardens. City officials have not been impressed in recent years with Community Builders’ record in town.
I'm surprised the NHI is wearing kid gloves WRT the Harp families unpaid back taxes. Certainly that's germane to this article given that its about a real estate deal?