Thomas Breen photos
The Dixwell block that the city is looking to redevelop. Below: LCI chief Serena Neal-Sanjurjo pitches plan.
The city is racing to buy and then redevelop a two-story church on Dixwell Avenue as a neighborhood daycare as part of a larger effort to buy up blighted properties on the block — before large private landlord groups scoop them up first.
The property in question is 308 Dixwell Ave., a 6,750 square-foot lot located between Henry Street and Munson Street that is currently owned by the New Growth Praise Center, a church headed by New Haven Rising co-founder Rev. Scott Marks.
Top officials from the city’s anti-blight and redevelopment department, the Livable City Initiative (LCI), pitched the city’s plans for the property — and its larger vision for the Dixwell corridor — at the most recent meetings of the city’s Property Acquisition and Disposition (PAD) Committee in the fifth floor library of the City Plan Department at City Hall and then City Plan Commission in the ground-floor meeting room at 200 Orange St.
LCI Deputy Frank D’Amore and Quinnipiac Meadows Alder Gerald Antunes.
“This is a commercial property that the city is looking to acquire to add to its portfolio of other properties on Dixwell Avenue, which is part of a larger development that the city is looking to do along the corridor,” LCI Deputy Director Frank D’Amore said at the PAD Committee meeting this past Wednesday.
The city is looking to purchase the property, which currently houses a two-story, 3,373 square-foot building, from the church for $190,000.
At the subsequent Wednesday night City Plan Commission meeting, LCI Executive Director Serena Neal-Sanjurjo said the city hopes to eventually sell a redeveloped version of the property to a local daycare service that has been in the Dixwell neighborhood for 22 years. That daycare provider has been looking to expand and wants to stay in the area. So the city has been scouring the Dixwell corridor for potential relocation spots, and found this church on the market.
After lengthy negotiations that started in the $500,000-plus range, she said, the church has finally agreed to a price that the city finds reasonable — in no small part because of a property value appraisal that the city commissioned this summer that pegged the property as worth $160,000.
“If we don’t buy it,” she said, “it will go on the market and it will go for a much higher number.”
LCI Neighborhood & Commercial Development Manager Arlevia Samuel.
LCI Neighborhood & Commercial Development Manager Arlevia Samuel said at the PAD Committee meeting that this proposed acquisition is not a one-off — but rather part of a larger neighborhood-wide strategy by the city’s property redevelopment wing.
“It’s a part of the commercial corridor revitalization,” she said. “We’re trying to acquire the blighted properties that are available to redevelop as retail and office spaces on the corridor that hopefully will be sold back and incorporated back into the community as owned by small businesses.”
The city has already acquired quite a few properties in the area, she said. According to the city assessor’s database, the city owns five properties on that same side of Dixwell Avenue, between Admiral Street and Munson Street.
The PAD Committee meeting.
That includes 252 Dixwell (bought by the city in 2003), 256 Dixwell (2003), 294 Dixwell (2004), 306 Dixwell (2018), and 316 Dixwell (2019). On the other side of the street, the city also owns 321 Dixwell (2017) and 325 Dixwell (2015).
Samuel and D’Amore said that the city is also in negotiations to purchase the old Walt Cleaner’s lot at 310 Dixwell.
“We’re just trying to get site control over there,” D’Amore said about that stretch of Dixwell. “It’s all about getting site control now so that we can turn that block around.”
City Deputy Director of Zoning Jenna Montesano added that the city’s planned commercial corridor rezoning initiative (which no longer include Dixwell, for now) is also geared towards spurring this type of commercial redevelopment, not just for properties owned by the city but also for projects like what ConnCORP has planned for Dixwell Plaza.
City Small Business Development Officer Clay Williams and Deputy Director of Zoning Jenna Montesano.
Why does the city want to pay more than the appraisal? asked city Small Business Development Officer Clay Williams.
Two reasons, Samuel said. The first is that the church’s initial asking price was so high. The city was only able to bring them down after getting a new appraisal done in July. The city assessor’s database lists the most recent appraisal of the property as $316,600, while this summer’s appraisal dropped the property’s market value to $160,000.
The second reason is that the church warned the city that, if it didn’t buy, it would likely enter a bidding war with other private investors.
“A couple of private developers were interested,” she said. “We didn’t want Ocean Management to buy it.”
As the city looks to buy up blighted properties on Dixwell Avenue for redevelopment purposes, D’Amore said, it’s found itself more and more facing off against private landlords with deeper pockets.
Williams offered a theory as to why some of the larger players have gone on recent buying sprees in that area of Dixwell and Newhallville: To take advantage of new capital gains tax breaks for landlords who buy up properties in federally-sanctioned, state-selected “Opportunity Zones.”
“We have heard that a lot of these developers are buying up properties in the Opportunity Zones,” Williams said, “because they are creating their own qualified opportunity funding sources to attract some of that capital gains money.
“We’re seeing a whole lot of properties suddenly purchased in Dixwell and Newhallville and the Hill, and we think it’s because folks are taking advantage of the Opportunity Zones.”
Samuel said that the city has found itself in competition with landlords paying double the price of what a property is actually worth.
Neal-Sanjurjo stressed that same point later that night at the City Plan Commission meeting.
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The current church at 308 Dixwell Ave.
City Plan Commission Chair Ed Mattison urged his colleagues to support the city’s bid to purchase 308 Dixwell.
“I think allowing a random builder to get it is not in conformity with what we want to accomplish” on that corridor, he said.
Both the PAD Committee and the City Plan Commission gave unanimous recommendations of approval for the city’s bid to acquire 308 Dixwell. That proposed purchase now goes to the LCI Board of Directors, and then over to the Board of Alders for a potential committee public hearing and final vote.
Look at any Housing Authority apartment complex over the years and you will wish a slumlord from New York came to buy it. I thought the City had no money? Why is there money for more gov ernment projects now?