Leaky Church Apartments Sold For $2.7M

An Edgewood-based landlord has purchased a church-affiliated apartment building downtown for $2.7 million — leaving the property’s tenants to wonder whether the new owner will be any better than the last at promptly repairing leak-damaged rental units.

According to a warranty deed posted to the city’s land records database on Friday, The Emerson LLC spent $2.7 million buying the Emerson Apartments at 284 Orange St. from Emerson Apartments LLC.

That’s a lot of ​“Emerson.” Here’s what it all means.

The 18-unit apartment building stands right next to and was sold by a company affiliated with Trinity Lutheran Church. 

It was bought by a company controlled by West Park Avenue-based landlord Michael Hayes, who has been working as a local landlord-real estate investor-developer for the past two decades through his firm City Restorations. 

The city most recently appraised the property for tax purposes as worth $2,674,900.

Neither Hayes nor the building’s new property management company replied to requests for comment by the publication time of this article.

An unnamed representative from The Emerson Committee, the Trinity Lutheran church-affiliated group that previously owned 284 Orange St. through Emerson Apartments LLC, told the Independent that the sale stemmed in part from just how much it would cost to fix two flood-damaged apartments. from the high repair costs for two flood-damaged apartments.

“The Emerson Committee’s mission statement has always been to provide safe and affordable housing at The Emerson Apartments and use any profits to support both local charities as well as charities around the world,” that statement reads. ​“Recently, we had an unforeseen event that damaged two apartments. It was later found that those apartments were not authorized by the building department. In order to bring the building into compliance significant upgrades to fire prevention and mitigation systems, plumbing and electrical systems. The high cost of the upgrades along with the significant increases in taxes and insurance costs would make it impossible to rent the apartments for anything less than market rate, contradicting our mission statement.

The previous landlord’s statement continued: ​“Inasmuch as The Emerson Committee’s primary mission was not to profit from rental income, but to keep the apartments at The Emerson building in the affordable range, we have made the difficult decision to sell the building. The proceeds will allow us to continue to support charity.” The committee representative thanked city Building Official Bob Dillon for doing ​“everything he was allowed to by law in order to get the two apartments back online. The headwinds that were caused by the required upgrades to bring the property into compliance thwarted his efforts but we are grateful nonetheless.”

The co-founder of the building’s tenants union, Alexander Kolokotronis, said that he and fellow renters at the Emerson Apartments are ​“really upset right now” about the previous owner’s lack of communication with tenants about the sale. 

He said that the building’s occupants received notices on their doors last Friday and letters in the mail Monday indicating that a new property management company is now handling the building. ​“We’re really dismayed they didn’t talk to us at all” and give the tenants union a shot at trying to buy the building, he said, and potentially convert it into a tenant-owned co-op.

Kolokotronis, meanwhile, is still living out of a hotel in Southington, where he’s been since February when he was first displaced from his Orange Street apartmentdue to a flood in his bathroom and long-standing repair work that has yet to be finished. The city condemned his and neighbor Jim Blau’s apartments earlier this year on the grounds that they present​“a serious hazard to the health and safety of the occupant.”

Kolokotronis and Blau subsequently formed the Emerson Tenants Union, have led protests outside the Orange Street apartment building, and were hit with pre-eviction notices (but never actually full-blown eviction lawsuits) by the former church-affiliated landlord. Kolokotronis and Blau are set to appear before the Fair Rent Commission later this month for hearings on retaliation complaints filed against their now-former landlord.

Kolokotronis said he hopes that the new landlord is easier to communicate and negotiate with than the previous. He also lamented what he described as a ​“betrayal” by City Hall in being able to effectively force his previous landlord’s hand to make the necessary repairs so that he and Blau can return to their longtime homes.

In an email comment, Mayor Justin Elicker said he hopes that the new landlord ​“will choose to work collaboratively with the Emerson Tenants Union.” He recognized how ​“frustrating” it must be for Kolokotronis and Blau to be displaced from their apartments for so many months ​“with very little progress made by their landlord to repair their units so they can move back in.”

Elicker said that the city has used its limited tools — of inspecting the property and issuing violations, of condemning the units and putting a lien on the property, of offering tenants relocation assistance and protection from retaliation, of urging the landlord to act promptly — to try to get the repairs done and the tenants home.

Meanwhile, what exactly is the previous landlord’s relationship to Trinity Lutheran?

The state’s business registry lists Emerson Apartments LLC’s principal as Cloud Management LLC, a North Haven-based property management company run by Raymond Sola. It also lists Sola as Emerson Apartments LLC’s ​“agent,” with his business address being Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church. 

The city’s land records database shows that, back in 2000, Trinity Lutheran quit ownership of 284 Orange St. to Emerson Apartments LLC for $1.

On Friday, in tandem with the sale of the apartment building, the city’s Livable City Initiative (LCI) filed a ​“relocation costs” lien for an as-yet unspecified amount on 284 Orange, which it identified as being owned at the time by ​“Emerson Apartments LLC c/o Trinity Lutheran” church.

The warranty deed memorializing Friday’s property deal, meanwhile, was signed on behalf of the seller by Heidi Edgerton and Ruth Setaro, members of Trinity Lutheran’s church council who also sit on the ​“Emerson Committee.” 

In a comment provided to Fox 61 in early May, an unnamed representative of that church-related committee said that the building was not owned or operated by Trinity Lutheran Church, but instead was owned by Emerson Apartments LLC and that the day-to-day operation was managed by a third party company. 

That comment continued by stating that it was the job of ​“the Emerson Committee, a group of unpaid volunteers, who are members of the church, but are not allowed to be in a leadership position in the church, to ensure that the building accomplishes its mission statement. The mission of The Emerson Apartments is to provide safe and affordable housing that is well below market rent to those in need. Emerson Apartments also donates 100% of any excess revenue to charitable causes as creation of profit is not a part of our mission statement. The Emerson Apartments is not an official non-profit in the traditional sense because it was the belief of the founding members that the building should pay taxes to the city of New Haven as our tenants use municipal services.”