Thomas MacMillan Photo
LCI’s Johnson: Take 2.
The city has asked local developers to bid on buying a troubled Dwight housing complex that a previous developer promised to save — and instead let slip further into disrepair.
The project in question is Dwight Cooperative Homes on Edgewood Avenue, an 80-townhouse complex whose rising and falling fortunes have mirrored those of a slew of idealistic New Haven experiments. It opened in 1969 as a family-owned cooperative, one of a bunch created in town with federal money and local institutional backing during the 1960s. Like the other co-ops, the complex declined amid charges of financial or board mismanagement and infighting. Just as the families were about to finish paying off the mortgage to the complex, it was foreclosed upon; like other former co-ops, it was sold to a private owner with the help of city government.
Unlike, say, Ethan Gardens around the corner on Orchard Street, Dwight Co-Ops did not recover under private ownership. The new owner, Garfield Spencer of Bridgeport, who had a checkered development history in other cities, fell behind in both taxes and repairs despite constant prodding by city government. The city has now moved to foreclose on the property; Erik Johnson, head of the Livable City Initiative (LCI), city government’s neighborhood anti-blight agency, last week threatened to take Spencer to court unless he made repairs fast. (Read about that here.)
Meanwhile, Johnson (pictured meeting last week with Dwight Co-Op tenants) confirmed that he has moved to find a new buyer to take the property off Spencer’s hands. LCI issued a request for proposals from developers, “primarily” local developers, to buy the property, Johnson said.
Johnson asked developers to produce proposals by the end of the month.
Dwight Co-Ops; Inset Photo: Garfield Spencer (AllPawtucket.com Photo)
Johnson said Spencer has agreed to sell the property. (Spencer failed to return a call seeking comment.) The federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has the right to take the property away from him for breach of contract. But everyone agreed a transfer of title would happen much sooner, with fewer problems, if the city and Spencer simply negotiate terms of a new third-party sale, Johnson said. Under the terms of his contract with the city, Spencer cannot make a profit on selling the property, so the negotiations involve calculating an agreed-upon set of costs incurred to date, according to Johnson.
The city had promised to contribute up to $1 million to Spencer’s renovation of Dwight Co-Ops. It never ended up releasing any of that money to Spencer, Johnson emphasized.
Michael Schaffer of C.A. White was one of the developers Johnson approached about submitting an RFP to buy Dwight Co-Ops. Schaeffer said he’s not sure yet if his firm will.
“We tend to be market-rate managers,” he said of C.A. White, which manages apartment, office, retail, and hotel properties. “We’re always open to looking at opportunities to see if it’s something that makes sense. I’m not sure if [this] is in our bailiwick.”
“I hope the city wisely gives this project to a local developer with extensive experience renovating community housing. The days of out-of-town operators taking advantage of New Haven have hopefully ended,” said Shmully Hecht, whose Pike International revived the former Ethan Gardens cooperative, among other complexes. Hecht said Pike “intends” to submit an RFP for Dwight.
Why was the city willing to subsidize Mr. Spencer's for-profit rehabilitation in the first place? What's the story behind that $1,000,000.00 deal? Where did those funds come from? Were the funds part of tax incentives, or did the city offer actual cash?