Ribbon Cut On 299 New Luxury Apts

New Haven’s building boom continued apace — with the official opening of 299 new luxury apartments at the recently built Olive & Wooster complex on the downtown edge of Wooster Square.

Mayor Justin Elicker, New York City-based developer Darren Seid, Hill Alder Carmen Rodriguez, and economic development officials and boosters gathered in a second-floor common area of the new complex Wednesday to cut the ribbon on the new apartment building at 87 Union St.

Seid, whose company Epimoni co-developed the project with the fellow New York City-based firm Adam America, said that the first tenants started moving in to the six-story, 299-unit complex last November. 

The building is currently 30 percent leased up. He also said that monthly rents range from $1,200 per bed in some of the ​“co-living”-style four-bedroom apartments to around $3,000 per two-bedroom apartment to over $6,200 for the most expensive and largest apartments.

The building contains a mix of studio, one-bedroom, two-bedroom, three-bedroom, and four-bedroom units.

Imagine what this stretch of Olive Street on the downtown edge of Wooster Square looked like five years ago, Elicker said. 

“It is ridiculous the way that the community has changed here, and development has changed.”

That’s not just because of the 299 new luxury apartments at the now-open Olive & Wooster. It’s also because of the still under-construction 230 new market-rate apartments that a Houston-based firm is currently buildng right next door at the former Comcast site on Chapel Street. A Philadelphia-based developer, meanwhile, recently won rezoning approval of an adjacent surface parking lot on Chapel Street, where it plans to build a new 13-story apartment tower. And just to the south of Olive & Wooster, Seid’s New York-based company has already won city approval to build another 185 new market-rate apartments along Fair Street.

“There are so many developments in the pipeline,” Elicker said. These hundreds of new apartments will help bring down rents and the current ​“pressure on the housing market” citywide, he predicted.

City Deputy Economic Development Administrator Carlos Eyzaguirre agreed.

“This is really larger than just 300 units in the neighborhood,” he said about Wednesday’s ribbon cutting. ​“It really speaks to a larger reconnection of the downtown to Wooster Square, and of downtown to the Hill.”

Hill Alder Carmen Rodriguez, whose ward stretches north to include the section of Wooster Square now home to the Olive & Wooster complex, praised Seid for making sure that ​“everyone has a seat at the table” when planning his neighborhood-transforming developments.

“You’ve done a lot of homework,” she said. 

Apartment complexes that bring downtown, Wooster Square, and the Hill closer together, all right next door to transit hubs like Union Station and the State Street train station, Rodriguez said. ​“Who can ask for anything better?”

Eyzaguirre said that some version of this apartment complex at 87 Union St. has been in the works since 2014.

Adam America and Epimoni bought the site from local building Noel Petra and Westport developer David Adam Realty for $10 million in 2018. They then received a five-year site plan extension from the City Plan Commission, giving the developers until 2025 to finish the project. The developers broke ground on the project in March 2019, and soon thereafter demolished the sole remaining building on the site, the former home of Torrco plumbing supplies. In 2020, they sold the roughly 50,000 square-foot lot at 87 Union St. for $10 million to a holding company controlled by a real estate investment trust (REIT) called Safehold, and then signed a 98.5‑year lease with the new ground owners, while retaining responsibility for building up and managing the apartment complex.

$3K For 2BRs. Not Including Pet Fees

Seid said during the ribbon-cutting press conference that this new 299-unit apartment complex casts a wide net by having rents at a lower ​“entry point” that some comparable new luxury buildings.

For example, he said, most comparable new buildings in town offer studio apartments at ​“an entry level price of $2,000.”

“Ours has an entry point of under $1,200 per month,” he said. That’s for anyone who wants to rent one of the beds in a four-bedroom, four-bathroom apartment.

If one wants to rent a full apartment, and not just a bedroom, how much might that cost?

Seid estimated that one-bedroom apartments at this new complex rent in the range of $2,200 per month. Two-bedroom apartments rent in the range of $3,000 per month. ​“The most expensive unit might be around $6,200 or $7,000,” he said.

A handout provided to the Independent by Olive & Wooster leasing manager Melissa Lillo, meanwhile, showed that it costs $75 to apply to live at this new apartment complex. It then costs an extra $425 if that application is accepted. It then costs a $350 deposit and a $25 monthly fee to have a pet in your apartment. It then costs an extra $150 per month for parking. Tenants are also responsible for covering the costs of electricity and water, on top of all that.

How does Seid feel about all of the other competition soon to come online within a two-block radius on Olive Street? Is there enough demand in this small stretch of New Haven’s housing market for apartments at these prices?

Seid said he thinks so. But don’t just listen to him. ​“The data just keeps proving it true,” he said. ​“A lot of smart investment dollars are chasing this around.”

As he works on ​“capitalizing” the 185-unit complex he plans on building next door on Fair Street, he keeps finding that investors are lining up to put their money in New Haven housing.

“A lot of smart people with access to a ton of data are very excited about this whole area,” he said.

Click on the video below to watch Wednesday’s press conference in full.