Arthur Delot-Vilain file photo
Opuszynski (left): “I bought it from [Xu] after he didn’t want to deal with the headache.”
A Madison-based investor now owns two of three foreclosed former co-op properties on Henry Street — after buying the row home for $480,000 from Bethany-based landlord Jianchao Xu.
According to a deed posted to the city’s land records database on Oct. 15, Alex Opuszynski’s company Alpha Acquisitions LLC paid Xu’s Nash Street New Haven LLP $480,000 to purchase 127 Henry St.
That’s the exact same amount of money Xu’s company paid to buy that six-unit historic brick row house after winning a foreclosure auction in June.
During a separate but adjacent foreclosure auction on that same day in June, Opuszynski’s company purchased the next-door, nine-unit row house at 139 Henry for $1 million. That means Opuszynski now owns two of the three former University Row Homes properties — with the city’s public housing authority having picked up the third, a nine-unit block at 133 Henry St., for $825,000 during a separate foreclosure auction in July.
“I bought it from [Xu] after he didn’t want to deal with the headache,” Opuszynski told the Independent about 127 Henry.
“I think I gave [Xu] an extra 20 grand,” he added, which would set the cost of his acquisition of 127 Henry at $500,000. The Independent was unable to confirm that exact figure, though a quitclaim deed transferring the property from Xu’s Nash Street New Haven LLP to Opuszynski’s Alpha Acquisitions LLC for $480,000 was entered into the city land records on Oct. 15, as was a $400,000 mortgage taken out by Opuszynski on 127 Henry.
Xu, who was recently fined $18,000 by the Livable City Initiative (LCI) for a series of missed inspections at an Elm Street house that would later be the site of a fatal fire, did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
In separate interviews, Opuszynski and then-Housing Authority Executive Director Karen DuBois-Walton told the Independent that securing their respective properties was a priority. DuBois-Walton told the Independent in October that the housing authority had “replaced all locks with master locks, boarded rear windows to prevent unauthorized access, and initiated repairs to secure safe entry” after finalizing the acquisition of 133 Henry.
The housing authority’s next step was to have an architect survey the units and “draft plans for unit rehabilitation” into “affordable, modern, energy-efficient homes.”
Opuszynski said he’s been securing the stairs, clearing out accumulating piles of garbage, and putting cameras and security lights on his portions of the property. “We can’t do anything procedurally other than that,” he said, because he’s looking to increase the density and is seeking a tax abatement and “zoning relief” in exchange for keeping the properties affordable.
“I could just paint it and spruce it up and put it back out,” said Opuszynski, “but it’s not gonna be 18 units, and it’s not gonna be affordable. It’s up to the city to work on the negotiations with me on that,” he added.
The city’s Economic Development Administration (EDA) is “in the process of scheduling a meeting with Mr. Opuszynski” to hear about proposed plans, according to a city spokesperson, but any tax abatement would have to wait until after such a meeting, and is subject to approval by the Board of Alders.