2nd Try Adds $1M To Purchase Price

The city’s housing authority paid a Long Island-based landlord $1.17 million for a six-acre former nursing home site on the far west side of town —five years after the agency nearly succeeded in purchasing that same vacant site for just $152,000 from the city at a foreclosure sale.

According to the city’s land record database, on Feb. 26, the Housing Authority of the City of New Haven (HANH) bought the former West Rock Convalescent Home site at 34 Level St. from 34 Level BSD LLC, a holding company owned by Long Island-based landlord Eyal Preis.

That transaction was among the latest land sales in town. (See above chart.)

Preis’s company bought the vacant Level Street complex for $1,118,000 in 2018, and the city last appraised it as worth $820,000.

At a December meeting of the housing authority’s Board of Commissioners, Shenae Draughn, the senior vice president for HANH’s development arm, the Glendower Group, told the commissioners the 34 Level St. project will feature homes almost exclusively for lower-income families.

She said that the 34 Level plan is ​“extremely critical for the redevelopment of Westville Manor,” where the housing authority plans to demolish the existing complex of 26 two-story buildings and 150 residential units and replace them with 39 townhouses and one three-story apartment building containing a total of 109 residential units.

Draughn said at that meeting that the purchase of 34 Level St. should allow for HANH to create 100 more units. She also said that Preis’s initial sale price offer was $1.7 million, and that the housing authority talked him down to $1.17 million after doing its own appraisal.

“We will engage in a full community planning/charette process to engage the community on what should go there,” Elm City Communities/HANH Executive Director Karen DuBois-Walton told the Independent by email Monday. ​“We envision mixed-income housing and amenities that will benefit that community.”

According to the city land records and state court records, this isn’t the first time that the housing authority has sought to purchase 34 Level St.

In 2016, the housing authority paid the city $152,001 to buy 34 Level St. during a foreclosure sale.

The property’s former landlord, the Utah-based Cache Private Capital Diversified Fund LLC, subsequently convinced former state Superior Court Judge Anthony Avallone to open and vacate the city’s tax foreclosure on 34 Level — and to essentially invalidate the city’s sale of the property to the housing authority.

Cache Private Capital argued in state court filings in the foreclosure case that it had obtained title to the subject property in 2015 by way of a foreclosure of its mortgage in a prior foreclosure action.

It said that the housing authority had then entered into discussions to buy the property from Cache Private Capital for $870,000, ​“more than five times the accepted bid price in this action.”

Cache Private Capital argued that the city’s foreclosure on 34 Level and sale of the property to the housing authority was invalid because city lawyers had never properly noticed the private landlord as to the foreclosure proceedings.

Avallone agreed. The city withdrew its foreclosure proceedings in Feb. 2018. And the housing authority filed a limited warranty deed on the city land records in Nov. 2017 that gave the property back to Cache Private Capital.

“We attempted to purchase it in the past out of foreclosure,” DuBois-Walton confirmed via email. ​“The City’s corporation counsel apparently made an error in their process of foreclosure. The original owner objected and got the foreclosure overturned. The city had to return our funds to us.”

After transferring the property to a subsidiary holding company called Level Street Holdings LLC, Cache Private Capital then sold the former nursing home site in June 2018 to Preis’s company for $1.18 million.

Preis’s company originally planned to convert the site into 74 new market-rate apartments. In March 2019, the City Plan Commission approved a smaller version of Preis’s revised plans, which sought to convert the site into 51 new market-rate apartments.

DuBois-Walton said that Preis’s company ​“approached us about purchase when their plans failed to get off the ground.”

The site is Preis’s second $1 million-plus sale of a failed local development in recent months. Late last year, another one of his holding companies sold the former Walter Camp house on Chapel Street to Ocean Management. That sale came after Preis had won approval from the City Plan Commission to build 13 apartments at that site.

In other recent property sales, on March 3, 831 Whalley Avenue Partners LLC, a holding company owned by New York City-based landlord Nitsan Ben-Horin, purchased 14 condos at 831 – 833 Whalley Ave. in Westville Village from ZBR Investments LLC, a holding company owned by Yehoshua Rosenstein, for $1,635,000.

The city last appraised those 14 condos as worth a total of $726,300.

In Newhallville, on Feb. 28, 212S LLC, a holding company owned by local landlord Alexandra Daum, purchased the seven-unit apartment complex at 212 Sheffield Ave. from 212 Sheffield Avenue LLC for $820,000.

The property last sold for $25,000 in 1999, and the city last appraised it as worth $363,800.

And in the Hill, companies affiliated with local mega-landlord Mandy Management spent $250,000 buying two buildings containing five different apartments.

On Feb. 12, the Mandy-affiliated holding company Real Estate Group XIV LLC purchased the three-family house at 22 Daggett St. for $120,000 from Theresa DeLeon. The property last sold for $130,000 in 1989, and the city last appraised it as worth $151,800.

On Jan. 21, Menahem Edelkopf purchased the two-family house at 141 Plymouth St. from the Bank of New York Mellon for $130,000. The property last sold for $255,000 in 2006, and the city last appraised it as worth $130,200.

And then on Feb. 27, Edelkopf quit claim the property to the Mandy affiliated Real Estate Group XV LLC for $1.

Previous property sale coverage:

• Investors Drop $1.1M On East Side Condos
• Out-Of-Town Builder Buys Park St. Block For $4.7M
• Ocean Spends $1.45M On 7 Houses
• 66 Norton Sells For $1.46M
• Mandy’s Buying Spree Tops $16.1M
• ​“Rt. 34 West” Hotel Site Sold For $2.8M
• Spinnaker Flips Comcast Project For $14.6M
• Sherman Medical Building Sells For $2.7M
• Pike, Mandy Spend $2M+ In Latest Buys
• 200+ Apartments Planned At Empty Eyesore
• Annex Apartments Sold For $3.95M
• Mill River Office Building Sold For $4.65M
• Local Landlords, Albertus Magnus Expand
• Mandy Buys Warehouse For $1.6M
• Pike Collects $890K On Wooster Sq. Sales
• Springside Apartments Sell For $3.2M
• Family Dollar Sells For 1.8M Dollars
• Pike Sells 2 Buildings To Yale For $3.8M
• Mansion Sells For Only $1.45M
• Landlord Tops 340 Units
• High Street Apts Sell For $25M+
• St. Michael’s School Sold, For Apartments
• Ocean Management Acquires Perrotti Westville Properties
• Paris Realty Picks Up 6 Q Meadows Condos
• Landlord Boosts West River Condo Holdings
• $21 Million Changes Hands In 2 Days
• 50 Factory Jobs Coming To Fair Haven
• Brendan Towers Sold For $6M+
• Investors Drop $917K On West Side Condos
• Mandy’s 2018 Buying Spree Nears $13M
• Mandy Empire Buys Up The Block
• Roots Planted In Newhallville
• Latest Sales: Mandy Buying Spree Continues
• Latest Sales: Mandy Expands In City Point
• Latest Sales: East Rock Home Buy Tops $1M
• Latest Deals: Beulah’s 5th Rehab On Block
• Latest Sales: NHR Sheds Small To Focus Big
• Latest Sales: Mandy Buys In Heights
• Home Sale Price Doubles In 13 Years