Melissa Bailey Photo
Seniors at the Berger Apartments will now write their rent checks to a new company, but little else will change, claimed the broker who arranged the recent sale of the low-income housing complex in West River.
Berger Apartments, a 144-unit affordable housing complex at 135 Derby Ave., sold on Wednesday for $11.2 million, reported Steve Witten of the brokerage firm Institutional Property Advisors (IPA). IPA represented the seller, Aimco and the buyer, Steele Property Holding LLC, in the deal.
All of the apartments have project-based Section 8 vouchers, subsidized by the government for low-income elderly and disabled tenants. The complex also serves as a regular polling station for primaries and general elections.
Built in 1900 as the Berger Brothers Corset Factory, the building was converted into housing in 1981, according to IPA. The reason it’s being sold now is that a long-term mortgage matured earlier this year, Witten said. To finance the conversion into apartments, Aimco took out a long-term mortgage through the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority. The mortgage was not prepayable, so the owners had to wait until they had paid it off, on Feb. 1, 2012, to put the building up for sale, Witten said. Aimco, based in Denver, is one of the nation’s largest owners and operators of apartment complexes. Steele Property Holding LLC is another national firm also based in Denver.
Berger tenants shouldn’t notice any major changes resulting from the sale, Witten claimed. No one will be evicted due to the transition, he said.
On Thursday, the complex buzzed about the change afoot.
“We knew it was up for sale, but we didn’t know when,” said Ray Onofrio, president of the tenant council. “We don’t even know what to expect.”
Tenants got a letter in their mailboxes Wednesday informing them of the sale. The letter directed them to start writing rent checks to Steele Berger Apartments LLC through the on-site management office. The previous management company, OP Property Management, LLC is being replaced by Monroe Group, Ltd. of Colorado, according to the letter. New management staff was busy meeting old staff Thursday and could not be reached for comment.
The complex includes 123 one-bedroom and 21 two-bedroom units, according to a press release from IPA. It includes “laundry facilities, community room, intercom-controlled access, game room, elevators, library and outdoor courtyard with gazebo.”
Several tenants called the past landlords “so-so.”
One tenant, who gave only her first name, Barbara, said the past landlord didn’t give tenants enough warning when they had to clean up and clear out of their rooms to make way for bed bug extermination. She said she hopes the new landlord “gives us more notice” when it’s time to blast away the bugs.
