Thomas Breen photos
Dev Deputy Carlos Eyzaguirre, Mayor Elicker, builder Alex Opuszynski and son Atlas, and Alder Eli Sabin at Thursday's groundbreaking ...
... for 15 new apartments planned for vacant State St. lot.
Shovels in hand and a mound of dark brown dirt underfoot, city officials joined a former nurse-turned-commercial real estate broker-turned-housing developer — along with his hard-hatted toddler son — for a ceremonial groundbreaking for 15 new apartments to be built atop a vacant Upper State Street lot.
That soil-shoveling celebration took place Thursday morning at the fenced in lot at 793 State St.
Mayor Justin Elicker, city Deputy Economic Development Director Carlos Eyzaguirre, and Downtown/East Rock Alder Eli Sabin joined Vanguard Private Client Group’s Alex Opuszynski for a press conference marking the soon-to-begin construction of a new mixed-use project that will contain 15 new apartments and two ground-floor units of retail/office space.
Rendering of planned new "Vanguard on State."
The presser took place roughly a year after the City Plan Commission signed off on the site plan for Opuszynski’s development proposal, which will set aside two apartments for tenants earning no more than 60 percent of the area median income (AMI) and which saw the Board of Alders OK selling Opuszynski a portion of the former Pulaski Street for $11,000 to facilitate his planned development.
Opuszynski, a 32-year-old Madison resident who studied nursing at Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU) and worked in the healthcare field before diving into the world of commercial real estate six years ago, said that construction on the planned $4 million development should begin next week and should take a year to complete.
He also said his commercial real estate brokerage company Vanguard — which currently operates out of a property right next door on State Street — plans to move its 10-employee operation into the groundfloor commercial spaces of the to-be-built new building as it grows its business and hires more workers.
Opuszynski: "The building design has been called timeless, by some."
“This is my first new construction” project, Opuszynski said before the start of Thursday’s presser. “There’s a need for housing.” He said he’s also working on a new housing development in New Britain, and that his company currently owns around 50 apartments in the New Haven area.
“I love East Rock,” he added. “It’s a vibrant neighborhood.”
And the building designed for this vacant State Street lot should resonate with the surrounding area’s architecture. “We respect the neighborhood,” he said.
About the former blighted five-unit building that used to stand on this site, Opuszynski said, “This was a total wreck. This area needs a perk up.” And this new development should help accomplish exactly that.
During the press conference itself, city officials praised the project for breathing new life into an Upper State Street site that has long lain fallow.
Elicker spoke about how New Haven has its “lowest vacancy rate in decades,” and it will take new housing projects big and small to address that housing crunch.
This is an example of “filling in what have been blighted properties, empty lots” and turning those sites into a place to live, added Sabin. He remarked on just how many press conferences and ribbon cuttings and groundbreakings he’s attended downtown recently. This is a “very exciting cycle that we’re part of today.”
Opuszynski with son, Atlas.
Vanguard colleagues and supporters at Thursday's groundbreaking.
During his time at the mic, Opuszynski thanked his family, his Vanguard colleagues, the city officials who supported the project, his local attorney Ben Trachten, and the Taqueria Tlaxcala food truck workers who showed up to serve tacos at the event.
“The building design has been called timeless, by some,” he said about his company’s efforts to make sure that the new project fits in with the surrounding neighborhood. “The building should look like one that” would fit on State Street, regardless of whether it was built today or a century ago.
The aesthetic is brutally dated and suburban. Such a shame that only 15 apartments are going on this lot. A really tall building could have gone here creating more value for the builder, more customers for the local businesses and sound dampening for the neighborhood and much need housing.