Investors Win Row Home Auctions

Two different landlords ended up on top of two adjacent tax foreclosure auctions — effectively closing the books on a decades-old co-op on Henry Street between Orchard and Dixwell. 

Court-appointed attorney Steven J. Grant oversaw those back-to-back auctions — the first at 139 Henry St., the second at 127 Henry — on Saturday at around noon. 

The attached brick buildings are two of the three properties that make up the University Row Homes co-op. 

The high bidder for the eight-unit property at 139 Henry was Alpha Acquisitions and Vanguard Private Client Services CEO Alex Opuszynski, who won with a final bid of $1 million. 

The high bidder for the the four-unit block at 127 Henry was Jianchao Xu, or ​“JC,” who won with a final bid of $480,000, as submitted by his company Nash Street New Haven, LLP.

Saturday’s auction marked the culmination of two of three tax foreclosure lawsuits filed by the City of New Haven in December 2023 against University Row Homes, Inc.. for the three attached properties at 127, 133, and 139 Henry Street. The third co-op property, at 133 Henry, is scheduled to go to auction in July. The back tax and interest debt across the three properties totaled approximately $110,000.

Click here for a previous article about leaky roofs and allegations of mismanagement at University Row Homes in the runup to Saturday’s auctions. 

Nine prospective buyers showed up on Saturday to bid on 139 Henry, the first property to go up for auction. Michael Eshetu, who came in from White Plains, N.Y., said he ​“usually buys foreclosures.” The Henry Street properties were an attractive investment, he said, because they have multiple units under one roof.

“Multi-families are a hot commodity right now,” Eshetu said. ​“I’d probably renovate the units and try to get fair market price.” 

Also at the auction was Shenae Draughn, the vice president for Elm City Communities, the umbrella agency that includes New Haven’s public housing authority and its nonprofit development arm. 

Draughn was there to bid on behalf of the city’s housing authority in hopes of preserving the row homes, whose rent was largely paid by federal Department of Housing and Urban Development subsidies until February, as mixed-income housing. If they won on Saturday, the housing authority would do a ​“capital needs assessment,” Draughn said, and ​“bring [the homes] up to a quality standard that people would want to call home.”

Opuszynski came to the auction with Vanguard Private Client Services VP Andrew Stein. ​“Immediately I would do a tax assessment,” Opuszynski said, noting that 139 Henry had been incorrectly assessed by the city as a nine-unit property (rather than eight), and as being in very good condition when, according to Stein and Opuszynski, it isn’t. Current tenants have complained about leaky roofs resulting in flooding and mold over the last year, a problem Opuszynski said began two years ago.

Opuszynski said he would try to ​“maximize the unit mix.” ​“If I got it,” he added, ​“I would try to work out a deal with the Housing Authority to keep it affordable, in general.” 

Opuszynski had been working to buy the property before it went into foreclosure. He noted his frustration with Michael Maynard, the president of the University Row Homes, Inc. co-op board. ​“Ultimately [Maynard was] in control of the finances for a while. They withheld the information that could have possibly helped” clear title to make a purchase possible, he claimed. (Maynard did not respond to requests for comment.)

The auction started at noon, after each of the bidders had turned their $105,000 deposits over to Grant. Grant explained the rules of the auction, then opened the bidding at $53,650.

Opuszynski made the first move, raising the bid to $250,000. After some back-and-forth, there were three bidders left above $755,000: Opuszynski, Draughn, and Xu.

The bidding war was mostly between Opuzysnki and Draughn, while Xu focused on out-bidding Draughn and the Housing Authority by $1,000 each time they placed a new bid. 

Ultimately, Opuszynski won the auction at $1 million even. ​“I’m working with public money,” Elm City Communities Executive Director Karen DuBois-Walton said as the auction ended. 

“I hope they do right,” DuBois-Walton said. ​“We would’ve invested in this — made it affordable.”

Opuszynski was happy to get the property even though he went over budget. ​“I would consider that overspending,” Opuszynski said. 

The Housing Authority did not enter bids on the second property at 127 Henry, so the path seemed clear for Opuszynski’s firm to acquire both properties. Ahead of the second auction, Grant explained the rules again and tried to rein in the bidders. ​“Come on. Let’s focus,” Grant said. After the prospective buyers deposited their $70,000 for the right to bid on 127 Henry, the auction opened at $38,500.

The second auction took 82 bids to complete, twice the amount of the first auction. 

The six bidders in the second auction each stayed in the mix much longer than the first time around. It largely came down to an intense nickel-and-dime fight between Xu’s Nash Street New Haven and Brie Bryant, who grew up in the neighborhood and returned to town to participate in this auction. 

Instead of margins of $5,000, $10,000, and $25,000 dollars, the bids in the 127 Henry auction inched up by $50, $200, and $500.

After entering a bid of $470,050, Bryant said, ​“Some of us grew up here. Just saying.” 

Opuszynski, who had been in the bidding up until then, immediately stopped entering bids. 

Xu then closed the auction with a $480,000 bid. Both Bryant and Xu declined to be photographed or interviewed by the Independent.

The buyers now have 30 days to pay the city in full. Meanwhile, residents of the buildings’ 12 occupied homes are on their way elsewhere with portable Housing and Urban Development vouchers distributed by Elm City Communities. 

Opuszynski claimed that University Row Homes property manager Sharon Manns went above and beyond her role as property manager to obtain vouchers for the residents. “[She’s] not a social worker,” he said. DuBois-Walton said the families were legally protected as residents of a home with a HUD-backed mortgage. ​“There was an obligation to protect the families, it’s a right of these folks,” DuBois-Walton said.

“The voucher is there for them. It will not expire,” she promised.