Thomas Breen photo
The now-vacant, soon-to-be-demolished Antillean Manor.
Carabetta project manager Polinsky: "It's been a really long road."
A Meriden-based landlord has begun pre-demolition work on a vacant former Dwight housing co-op where it plans to build back 31 affordable apartments.
That landlord is Carabetta Companies. The failed co-op was Antillean Manor.
According to the city’s land records database, on Oct. 19, Antillean Estates LLC — a holding company controlled by Carabetta — formally bought the vacant 31-unit complex at 206 Day St. for just over $1.2 million from Antillean Manor Cooperative, Inc.
The land records database also shows that, on Oct. 27, Carabetta’s holding company secured $11.1 million from the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority (CHFA) for the Antillean Manor redevelopment project. That financing package included a $2,215,500 construction loan and an $8,884,500 permanent loan.
All of this comes roughly 18 months after the Board of Alders signed off on a 17-year local tax break for the redevelopment project, and more than three years after Carabetta — which had already been managing the resident-owned property — struck a deal to purchase the failed co-op, temporarily relocate tenants, knock down the crumbling half-century-old Day Street building, and then construct in its stead a new apartment complex with the same number of affordable units.
“We’re excited,” Carabetta Vice President of Operations Bill Stetson told the Independent in a recent phone interview. “It’s a great development. It’s certainly going to be very handsome,” he said about the planned new 31-unit building.
“There will be a brand new structure built there on the existing site,” he said. “It’s all fully approved and permitted. We’re mobilizing now.”
First up, he said, now that Carabetta has all of its needed financing in place for the project, is “to begin dealing with any enviornmental issues. We’re going to have to go in and identify any lead paint, asbestos. There’s a transformer in the basement. We’ll have to check to see if there are any PCBs or environmental concerns. And then we’ll have to deal with any that we find” and abide by the necessary “prescribed containment requirements.”
“Once all of the environmental issues have been addressed,” Stetson continued, “demolition begins.”
Thomas Breen photo
Environmental remediation has begun as Carabetta prepares to tear down the Day St. building.
Eric Polinsky, who is Carabetta’s project manager for the Antillean Manor redevelopment, confirmed that environmental remediation at the site has begun now that Carabetta officially closed on all of its needed financing on Oct. 27.
That remediation “is a combination of lead removal, asbestos, and any other building contaminants, because the building is quite old,” he said.
He estimated that the abatement process will take around eight weeks.
“Then physical demolition will occur, when the building will be knocked down and removed.” That should take an additional six weeks.
All in all, Polinsky said, remediation and demolition should take place over the next 14 to 18 weeks. “That will be followed by the construction of the new building,” which should take a year to complete.
Translation: The current vacant Antillean Manor complex building should be torn down by the early spring of 2023, and its replacement 31-unit apartment complex should be built and open by the spring of 2024.
Polinsky said that Carabetta temporarily relocated 26 families who were living in the soon-to-be-demolished Antillean Manor complex. Those 26 families “are still expected to come back” to the new 31-unit complex once it’s built and open. He said that the new Section 8‑subsidized apartments will be reserved for renters earning between 25 percent and 50 percent of the area median income (AMI).
“We’re pretty excited to get this going,” Polinsky said. “It’s been a really long road for us.”
He noted that the original co-op, like two others in the neighborhood, had failed. “The building was so rundown and obsolete and had racked up so much debt.”
While Carabetta was the property manager, “we spent over $1 million of our own cash just to keep the building functioning,” he said. “It was at that point that we decided if we were ever to buy it and do the redevelopment, we could rescue the building.”
“I think it’s a win-win for everybody,” he said about the about-to-begin redevelopment project. “The new building’s going to be absolutely beautiful.”
Polinsky said that, in addition to the $8.8 million CHFA permanent loan, the project is also financed through over $6.7 million in low-income housing tax credits. He said there’s another $500,000 in “capital management funds,” $200,000 from the Connecticut Green Bank, $400,000 in federal HOME funds through the City of New Haven, and then over $1.4 million in the developer’s own cash.
The 17-year payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) deal approved by the alders in 2021, meanwhile, freezes the property’s local taxes at $42,554 per year. That number would increase only if the failed co-op’s new owner raises the rent for its tenants. In that case, taxes would rise proportionately with rents.
Previous coverage of Antillean Manor:
• Antillean Tax Break Wins Final Approval
• Antillean Manor Tax Break Advances
• Antillean Manor Tax Break Advances
• State $3.1M Boosts Antillean Manor Rebuild
• Antillean Manor Inches Closer To New Life
• Antillean Manor Co-Op Agrees To Sale
• Gentrification Vampires Vanish From Plan
• Builder Clears Hurdle At Crumbling Coop
• Not So Fast, Antillean Tells Eager Builder
• Plan Unveiled To Raze, Rebuild Co-ops
• Tenants Wooed In Land Grab
• Clean-Up Crews Descend On Antillean Manor
• The Next Church Street South?
Part of these questions/concerns stem from a prior bad actor - TCB The Community Builders - who did renovations adjacent to this area a few years ago and failed to contain lead and asbestos dust and used what appeared to be unqualified workers. A major complaint had to be filed as an emergency to get them to contain the toxic dust that was blowing all over the neighborhood. It was only after they were called out that the appropriate plastic encasement coverage was added to delimit the amount of dust polluting the surrounding air.