Sam Gurwitt file photo
Derrick Draughn: "It's not about the money. I just choose not to pay it until I feel like it."
A highway-adjacent vacant lot on the northern edge of Wooster Square wasn’t sold at a foreclosure auction on Saturday.
It almost was. But for the third time in a decade, the property’s owner retained control after paying off years of back taxes just in time — and kept alive a dream of building on the site himself, or selling it to someone who will.
The lot in question is located at 776 Grand Ave.
That 0.36-acre property right next to the I‑91 overpass on Grand Avenue east of Jefferson Street has been owned since 2012 by a holding company called Victoria-Layton Properties LLC, which is controlled by Derrick Draughn.
Thomas Breen photo
776 Grand, facing Grand Avenue.
The expansive grass-and-dirt-and-gravel-covered plot has been empty for years, following a fire in 2013 that led to the city-ordered demolition of a vacant three-story brick building.
This past Saturday, the property was scheduled to be auctioned off as the culmination of a tax foreclosure initiated by city government a year and a half ago in regards to more than $50,850 in unpaid local property taxes and fines covering 2017 to 2022.
The court had ordered in October a judgement of foreclosure by sale, and had assigned an attorney to oversee the auction at noon on Dec. 14 — only for a city-hired outside attorney to file on Dec. 7 a “satisfaction of judgment” document, indicating that the property’s owner had paid off all their outstanding tax-related debts and saving the lot from foreclosure.
State court records show that this isn’t the first time that Draughn’s company has let 776 Grand teeter to the very edge of tax foreclosure.
A state judge ordered a judgment of foreclosure by sale in March 2015 for a tax foreclosure lawsuit brought by the city in May 2014 in regards to roughly $15,000 in unpaid taxes and fines. Draughn’s company fully paid his local tax debts and kept the property out of foreclosure in June 2015. A state judge in a separate case ordered a judgment of foreclosure by sale in February 2017 for a separate tax foreclosure lawsuit brought by the city in November 2015 in regards to roughly $13,000 in unpaid taxes and fines. Draughn’s company fully paid his local tax debts and kept the property out of foreclosure in that case in May 2017.
The city most recently appraised the property for tax purposes as worth $241,500.
In a Monday phone interview with the Independent, Draughn — who runs his own information technology company and is a touring R&B singer — told the Independent that he still plans on putting 776 Grand to good use, and has no intention of losing it to tax foreclosure.
“Many people have approached me with many promising offers” for the vacant site, he said. “I do have some ideas about the property” and what should be built there, ideally a mixed-use development, perhaps the future corporate home for his IT company.
But, he cautioned, “I don’t do anything hastily. … Until I have a firm understanding of what [to build there], I will continue to pay for its holding.”
Draughn also noted that the right developer with the right project should be able to pay the right price to buy this property from him. He pointed out that a dilapidated former commercial building a few blocks west on Grand recently sold for $3.1 million, and the new owners have won city permission to build 112 new apartments there.
“I have this holy grail, but no one wants to dig deep enough in their pockets” to buy it, he said about 776 Grand.
And why exactly has he let this property go to the brink of tax foreclosure three times in the past decade?
“It’s not about the money,” he said about his past unpaid tax bills. “I just choose not to pay it until I feel like it. … I would rather pay the penalty associated with late pay and have liquid cash” on hand.
Asked to respond to potential criticism that this empty lot, by being vacant for so long, contributes little to the surrounding neighborhood, Draughn replied, “My empty lot isn’t the issue. I see other areas of dilapidation” around the city. His lot, he said, often serves as “a nice place free of charge to park, which I’m not happy about,” because it’s not intended to be used as a parking lot.
And asked about the burden that his not paying taxes until he absolutely has to might place on city resources, Draughn countered that, “at the end of the day, I pay it,” back taxes and fines and all.
He declined to say where exactly in Connecticut he lives, but noted that he has spent years giving back to this community, including in the form of the tax bills he ultimately pays to keep this property out of foreclosure. “I don’t even live in New Haven,” he said, “but I pay my taxes.”
Correction: An earlier version of this article stated that the only structure on 776 Grand is a towering billboard with personal injury lawyer ads facing the highway overpass. That billboard actually stands on an adjacent lot owned by a different property owner.
It makes no financial sense to wait like he does. Besides paying 18% interest on the delinquent taxes- attorneys fees and costs, plus the committees fees and costs, often approach approximately $10,000.