Thomas Breen photo
What happened to New Jack City?
The 40-unit 66 Norton St. apartment complex is on the cusp of rebirth as “Norton Pointe Apartments” — three years after the city shuttered the building for sagging floors, rotting wood, and leaky ceilings.
The market-rate residential building’s new slogan? “Luxury Living at Affordable Prices.”
The sky-blue banner now hanging from the five-story brick building’s facade promises quite the transformation for an Edgewood apartment complex with a troubled recent history.
In Feb. 2018, the city Building Department issued an emergency order to vacate the low-income apartment complex previously nicknamed “New Jack City” after a routine city inspection and subsequent structural analysis revealed that the building was no longer safe to inhabit.
Eighty tenants had just 45 minutes to pack their essential belongs and leave the building, and many spent the new few weeks living out of area motels as the building’s former management, legal aid attorneys, and the city’s Livable City Initiative worked to provide permanent relocation assistance.
Paris Realty Group
A new “Norton Pointe” kitchen, as photographed by the realtor.
Michael Zolty, whose Brooklyn-based company 66 Norton LLC purchased the complex in December 2019 for $1.46 million, said that 66 Norton St. is still empty — but not for long.
His company and Paris Realty Group, a local firm run by New Haven landlord Mendel Paris, have started pre-leasing the redone apartments with the hope of having tenants move in as early as the next six to eight weeks.
Zolty assured the Independent that the new name, brand, and marketing around the “Norton Pointe Apartments” is more than just talk.
“It’s fully gut-renovated,” he said. “We’ve put in a lot of money. We’ve renovated all of the units, common areas, full new electric and plumbing, a new roof, exterior work, concrete work, new elevators, bathrooms. … We basically redid the entire building, soup to nuts.”
When asked if the building is now safe to live in, Zolty said, “All the structural work was redone. Every bathroom’s brand new. Every plumbing line is brand new. Every electrical line is brand new. Floors, kitchens, appliances,” all new. So are a third of the complex’s windows, and its roof.
Why call the complex “Norton Pointe?”
“I figure it’s something sharp, gives it a new taste,” he said.
Thomas Breen pre-pandemic photo
Local realtor and landlord Mendel Paris (left).
Paris told the Independent that roughly seven prospective tenants have already applied to live at the redone 66 Norton St. “We’re getting Yale students applying,” he said. “I think [the new landlord] is really going to change the area.”
Referring to the new luxury/affordable slogan, Paris said, “You’re going to get the finishes you get at the Corsair or Audubon, but at half the price. It’s a beautiful product, almost like a new building.” He said the new building could have new tenants as early as May.
Paris Realty Group listings
Listings on Paris’s realty group website show that one-bedroom apartments at the new “Norton Pointe Apartments” go for $1,295 a month, two-bedrooms rent for $1,495, and three-bedrooms for $1,695.
“Walk outside and you are minutes away from Downtown New Haven, Yale University, and West River Memorial Park, public transportation, and convenient to 1 – 91 and I‑95 and Metro North Train station,” one rental listing reads. “This lively area greets you with fine dining, nightlife, shopping, and so much more!”
The listing also states that rental qualification requirements include a monthly income three times the rent price, “good credit,” and “no evictions or criminal history permitted.”
When asked about whom he’s looking to rent these renovated apartments to, Zolty said: Anyone who qualifies. While they are market-rate apartments, he said, anyone with federally subsidized Section 8 vouchers who meet the other rental criteria are also of course eligible to move in.
3 Permits Pulled, Dozens Of Inspections Conducted; Turcio: “Still A Way’s Away” From Opening
Building Department photo
An eroded support beam in the basement of 66 Norton in 2018.
Paris Realty Group
A redone apartment in 2021.
Thomas Breen pre-pandemic photo
City Building Official Turcio.
The city’s building permit and inspection online database also shows that Zolty’s company has been busy working on 66 Norton St. since buying the complex 14 months ago.
City Building Official Jim Turcio Thursday morning revealed that, from that top city inspector’s perspective, there’s plenty yet to be done before tenants start moving in.
“They’re still a way’s away” from opening up those rental units to new residents, Turcio said.
He said the landlord still needs to schedule additional inspections for insulation, plumbing, and electrical. He also said that an inspector in his department who was involved in reviewing rehab work at 66 Norton St. recently left his city post for another job. Turcio promised to check in next week on exactly what work still needs to be done.
A review of the city’s online building permit and inspection database offers a look at the work that’s already taken place.
On Jan. 13, the new landlord pulled a building permit for “structural repairs to existing apartment building in strict accordance with engineer’s plans.”
That permit described the necessary work as “maintain/construct all required fire separations. Install smoke and CO detectors as required.” It also stated that additional permits would be required for further repairs to and replacement of existing fire escapes.
The Jan. 13 permit estimated that such rehab would would cost a total of $236,634.
The Building Department conducted 27 different inspections between Jan. 24, 2020 and Feb. 9, 2021 for work associated with this permit, according to the city’s online database. Those include inspections of framing, fire stopping, roofing, and insulation, as well as more general site visits and site inspections. After the most recent site inspection on Feb. 9, the city marked the building, in regards to work associated with this permit, as “passed.”
On April 16, the new landlord pulled a plumbing permit for installing 41 new baths and kitchen sinks. That permit estimated that the cost of the work would come to $250,000.
The city conducted nine inspections associated with this plumbing work, according to the online database, and marked the permitted work as “passed” following a May 12, 2020 routine inspection.
And on May 12, the landlord pulled an electrical services permit for rewiring all of the apartments. That permit estimated the total cost of said electrical work to be $275,000.
That permit states that each apartment would be fitted out with Romex wiring using plastic boxes on wood studded walls, exhaust fan light combinations in all bathrooms, and electric baseboard heating to be controlled individually per room by wall mounted thermostats, among other electrical improvements. The permit also details hat all units will have 120 volt smoke and combination detectors.
The city’s online inspection database shows that the city conducted nine inspections between May and October 2020 for work associated with this electrical permit. The most recent inspection on Oct. 27, 2020 marked the permitted work as “passed.”
The database lists one inspection, from Sept. 11, 2020 regarding the building’s framing, as still open.
This is a great example of how displacement of residents happens when property values are too low --- not when they are too high.
Getting more high-end, market-rate apartment units in all city neighborhoods -- and thereby raising land values -- would do more to prevent gentrification and displacement than any program to build deed-restricted, "inclusive" or affordable housing will be able to, at least at current levels of federal and state funding. Ideally we can do both, but at $400,000 per "affordable" unit, there simply isn't anywhere near enough public money to subsidize our way out of this issue.
Building new market-rate (which realtors call "luxury") housing is the only realistic way that cities can ensure affordability, continue to generate private investment into housing, and prevent more people from getting displaced: https://cityobservatory.org/the-end-of-the-housing-supply-debate-maybe/.
Assuming there is a tradeoff, instead of spending $40 million to build 100 "affordable" units, we should put $40 million into stabilizing neighborhoods, redoing brownfields, issuing tax credits and otherwise making New Haven more attractive to private developers who will then build or rehab thousands of units.