Property Roundup: Nonprofit Buys Ely House For $800K; LCI Buys Blighted 3‑Family

A downtown visual arts nonprofit has closed on its purchase of the John Slade Ely House — warding off the building’s potential sale to a residential developer, with the help of a loan from two Fair Haven businessmen.

That’s one of the city’s latest local property transactions, as recorded on the city’s online land records database. (See below for a full roundup of recent local real estate sales.)

On May 12, the Friends of John Slade Ely House of Contemporary Art, Inc. — also known as ECOCA — purchased the 10,000-plus square-foot Elizabethan mansion at 51 Trumbull St. from the Area Cooperative Educational Services Corporation (ACES) for $800,000.

That property sale comes roughly a month and a half after ECOCA’s board announced that it had struck a last-minute deal to purchase the long-time downtown arts hub building from ACES, a regional arts education organization that bought the Ely House in a probate sale in 2016.

ACES had planned on selling the building to a residential developer after failing to secure enough state funds to renovate the property and convert it into a space for the nearby Educational Center for the Arts’ (ECA) visual arts program. Before selling the building, ACES gave the ECOCA art gallery nonprofit right of first refusal and a chance to purchase the building if it could match the developer’s $800,000 offer by March 15.

The ECOCA board was able to do just that — with the help of Fair Haven businessmen Carmine and Vinny Capasso. The city land records show that, also on May 12, 51 Trumbull Street LLC — a holding company controlled by the Capassos — issued a $1.2 million mortgage loan to ECOCA, thereby providing the nonprofit with enough money to buy the building.

This purchase ​“gives ECOCA a permanent home so that it can deepen its roots in the community and advance its mission to serve and promote artists and to present challenging, conceptual and provocative contemporary art that illuminates the issues of our time,” ECOCA board members Jeanne Criscola, Debbie Hesse, Suneet Talpade and Jeanne Ciravolo told the Independent in a written statement provided for this article.

“We have ambitious plans to grow ECOCA and to have a broader reach for both artists and the community. These plans will depend on having the support of the local community. We have seen an outpouring of good wishes when we made our intention clear on purchasing the building from ACES. We wish to use this momentum to solidify our position not just in New Haven but also across Connecticut. We have a talented Board, all of whom volunteer a significant amount of their time to make sure that ECOCA succeeds. While we will face challenges, we do believe that with the commitment of our Board Members, our newly formed Management Team, and our constituents, we will be successful.”

The board members said they’re planning a ​“community celebration” for September to usher in this new chapter of the Ely Center’s history, and to kick off a fundraising effort to help cover the costs of building repairs and renovations, and potentially hiring more staff.

“This purchase was made possible with the generous support of two local business people, Carmine and Vinny Capasso, who have a long history of ties to New Haven,” the board members wrote. ​“Their business, GL Capasso, Inc. is a family-owned and operated structural restoration company, with three generations of Capassos having spent more than 40 years building it into one of the Northeast’s leading exterior structural restoration companies. Over the past three months, both Carmine and Vinny worked closely with the Board of ECOCA to put this deal together and make some additional commitments to building and roof repairs. These improvements will take place over the next twelve months.”

Built in 1901, the mansion at 51 Trumbull St. was the home of John Slade Ely and Grace Taylor Ely. As the Ely Center’s website relates,​“Grace, an active community member and supporter of the arts, left the house in trust as an art center for emerging contemporary art after her death in 1959. The first exhibition opened in April 1961 with works from New Haven Paint & Clay Club.”

Roundup: City Buys Winchester Eyesore For $155K

In other recent local property transactions:

• On May 18, the city purchased a long-vacant and derelict three-family house at 558 Winchester Ave. from Yisroel Rabinowitz for $155,000. The Board of Alders signed off on the city’s purchase of this abandoned eyesore back in February 2021. The Livable City Initiative (LCI) — the city’s anti-blight, housing code enforcement, and neighborhood development agency — plans on converting the property into a new income-restricted, owner-occupied residence, building off of similar affordable housing development efforts LCI has already undertaken down the block at Winchester Avenue and Thompson Street. The sale was apparently held up by dueling lawsuits filed by the previous owner, Rabinowitz, and by local landlord Sim Levenhartz, who had hoped to purchase the building at a lower price than the city had offered. Rabinowitz withdrew his lawsuit on the matter in August 2021. Levenhartz withdrew his lawsuit in March of this year.

• On May 6, the various New York-based investors who own 201 Munson St. consolidated their ownership of the property under a single holding company, called 201 Munson Borrower LLC, and then pulled a $78 million mortgage for the former industrial site. For the first time in years, construction vehicles and a trailer are now on the property, auguring some movement on the long-stalled nearly 400-unit apartment complex on the Dixwell/Newhallville/Science Park border. Click here for a full recent story on that project. The previous article includes information about how Paredim Partners — the same company that recently bought the Taft Apartments for $52 million — announced that it will be responsible for leasing and property management at the new 201 Munson St. apartment complex.

• On April 22, the Brown Investment Advisory & Trust Company, of the Mona Frisell Endicott Qtip Nonexempt Trust purchased the single-family mansion at 252 Saint Ronan St. from Good Place LLC — a holding company controlled by Carmen Kerkhoven Partridge — for $2,175,000. The property last sold for $1,325,000 in 2013, and the city last appraised it as worth $2,212,600.

• Holding companies affiliated with the local megalandlord Mandy Management spent another $1,571,500 purchasing five different rental properties containing 16 different apartments in Fair Haven, East Rock, Cedar Hill, and the Annex. Those include the six-unit apartment house at 53 Farren Ave., the two-family house at 8 North Bank St., the three-family house at 1376 State St., the two-family house at 16 Market St., and the three-family house at 186 Beacon Ave.

See the below chart for a full roundup of recent local property transactions.