PATRIQUIN Architects
Last look: now-scrapped Heights on the River rendering.
Historic commissioners’ objections and zoning limitations convinced a builder to ditch plans for a mixed-use project along the Quinnipiac River — leaving the neighborhood with a Mandy Management-run property instead.
After two years of trying to clear zoning and historic district regulatory hurdles while keeping necessary financing intact, local developer Juan Salas-Romer has given up on his plans to build the “Heights on the River” project.
Instead, he sold the properties to an affiliate of the local mega-landlord Mandy Management — which has no plans to develop the Fair Haven Heights riverfront site any time soon. The sale was part of a months-long $6 million buying spree in town by Mandy affiliates.
That sale is one of the latest property transactions to take place in the city, according to the City Clerk’s office’s land record database.
It also represents the latest cautionary tale about how city zoning and historic district regulations, which are in place to conform construction to a specific set of detailed design and density and building-material preferences, sometimes work instead to prolong —and even stymie —new development.
On June 23, Re Fund II SFR LLC, a holding company owned by an affiliate of Mandy Management, purchased the eight-unit, retail-apartment building at 28 East Grand Ave. as well as the two-unit, retail-apartment building at 686 Quinnipiac Ave. from Salas-Romer’s Heights on the River LLC for $975,000.
Salas-Romer acquired those two buildings in 2015 from Massachusetts-based investor Carl Youngman via a quit claim. The city last appraised the two parcels as worth a total of $808,500.
“Cumbersome Process”
Allan Appel photo
Building partners Noel Petra and Juan Salas-Romer in 2018 with Heights on the River renderings.
Since early 2018, Salas-Romer, who runs the local real estate company NHR Properties, had been trying to build a mini-neighborhood of 68 middle-income apartments, a cafe, and two or three locally owned stores on a collection of riverfront parcels just east over the Grand Avenue Bridge. He targeted working families priced out of the local market, led by, say, schoolteachers and cops, as renters.
The project represented a second crack at an unrealized dream hatched years ago by developer Joel Schiavone and his partners to build up a 1.08-acre site running along East Grand Avenue to Quinnipiac Avenue in the Quinnipiac River Local Historic District.
Salas-Romer, local builder Noel Petra, and local architect Karin Patriquin pitched the project to Fair Haven neighbors in March 2018—and then made three appearances before the city’s Historic District Commission between February and September of that year as they sought to win a certificate of appropriateness to construct the mixed-use project in the local historic district.
In a phone interview with the Independent Wednesday, Salas-Romer singled out the delays and uncertainties around the Historic District Commission review process, as well as size restrictions imposed by New Haven’s zoning code, as undermining the project’s financial viability.
“It was a rather cumbersome process with the Historic District Commission,” he said. “It wasn’t clear what exactly we needed to do. We had to do three or four meetings with them, and each meeting was probably around three hours.”
PATRIQUIN Architects
He praised Patriquin for her architectural drawings for the proposed project, describing them as respectful and in character with the historical oystering village along the river.
He said the commissioners had the developer come back time and again to discuss not just the looks of the project, but also the materials used.
“It got to a point where it really affected our ability to build at a sensible cost,” he said. “It’s not about just the looks of it, but also the materials of it. That took us a while, and it delayed the process. And when we delayed the process, then we missed some of the deadlines from our equity partners.”
Salas-Romer said he ultimately did receive a certificate of appropriateness that was conditional upon site plan approval.
By that time, he said, he had had to drop the size of the project from having roughly 68 apartments to around 53 apartments, in large part because of the city zoning code’s requirement for that district that a residential development have at least 1,000 square feet per living unit.
After dropping the total number of apartments in the project, “we had a lot more resistance from our equity partners to invest,” he said.
City assessor’s office
28 East Grand Ave., as it looks today.
On top of all of that, he said, there was the prospect — now the reality — of the Grand Avenue Bridge being closed for repairs through late 2021 or early 2022, thereby cutting off for an extended period of time the main connector between the proposed project and the rest of Fair Haven and the route to Downtown.
Salas-Romer said that he struggled to get a straight answer from the city about who would be responsible for paying for the seawall along the Quinnipiac River if he were to follow through with the development.
After getting to the stage where he and his development team had 60 percent of the site plan drawings complete, Salas-Romer said ‚“We ended up realizing that we were getting ourselves into a dead end.”
“There was a series of mishaps,” he said. “We put a lot of heart and resources into making it happen.”
Salas-Romer said he would like to see City Hall have one point person for developers to talk to when they encounter challenges as he did — whether they be related to historic district regulations, zoning, engineering, transportation, or building.
“That would be a lot of help for everybody,” he said.
Now, instead of following through with his vision for the Heights on the River project, he has sold his two parcels on East Grand Avenue and Quinnipiac Avenue to the local mega-landlord Mandy Management.
Yudi Gurevitch, a property manager with Mandy Management, told the Independent that the local landlord does not currently have any development plans for the property. It plans to operate the two properties as they currently exist.
“Coastal, Historic, Zoning” Constraints Proved Too Much
Thomas Breen photo
City Economic Development Administrator Michael Piscitelli (pictured) praised the “extra efforts” that Salas-Romer, Petra, and their team put in to try to make the Heights on the River project a reality.
“Ultimately, the private financing could not support the coastal, historic, zoning and other site constraints,” he told the Independent by email Wednesday.
“Many residents were engaged in the conversation, and of course we are all looking forward to supporting the new owners and small businesses who have been there for many years.”
He said that the economic development department’s staff was “fully behind this project, which represented an opportunity to transform the Quinnipiac River District and help rebuild the village-type environment.”
He noted that the project was of a higher residential density than past visions and city approvals for that same site.
As for the role of the Historic District Commission in the development’s approval process, Piscitelli wrote, “Economic Development provided project management support, but we do not override the Historic District Commission, which plays a vital role in preserving the integrity of the local historic district.”
Allan Appel photo
At least one Fair Haven Heights neighbor who greeted the Heights on the River project with skepticism over two years ago was not displeased to see the development as envisioned flame out.
Bob Oliver (pictured), who lives in a condo nearby on Quinnipiac Avenue, expressed concerns about insufficient parking and too-small living spaces when Salas-Romer first pitched the development to neighbors in March 2018.
Reached by phone on Wednesday, he stuck by his prior assessment that the the proposed development “was not a good proposal for the neighborhood.” He said it would have brought too many new, transient residents to the area, and would have flooded the adjacent streets with cars.
When asked how he feels now that Mandy owns the properties and has no plans to develop them, Oliver said he suspects that Mandy or some future owner will build on that riverfront site soon enough.
“It’s a valuable piece of property,” he said. “When the bridge rebuild is finished,” the new owners might change their minds.
Mandy Spends Over $6.1M In One Month
Google Maps photo
45 Barnes Ave.
The Heights on the River property purchases represented only one of a flurry of land acquisitions that Mandy Management affiliates engaged in over the course of the past month.
In all, Mandy-affilaited companies spent $6,110,000 buying 13 different local properties containing 70 different residential units.
Those land deals took place in place in neighborhoods that spanned the breadth of the city, from the Annex to Beaver Hills, from Quinnipiac Meadows to Edgewood.
“We continue to buy properties in all neighborhoods throughout New Haven,” Gurevitch told the Independent by email Wednesday. “Even in the midst of this terrible pandemic we continue our mission to provide quality housing in the New Haven area.”
The largest such deal took place on June 25, when Mandy’s Bentzy II LLC purchased the 26-unit apartment complex at 45 Barnes Ave. from Michael Quoka’s Club Q LLC for $2,425,000. The city last appraised the apartment complex as worth $1,173,220.
On June 19, Mandy’s Re Fund II SFR 1 LLC purchased the 12-unit apartment complex at 268 Sherman Ave. from 270 Sherman Ave LLC for $1,120,000. The property last sold for $900,000 in 2017, and the city last appraised it as worth $723,300.
On June 23, Re Fund II SFR 1 LLC purchased a two-family home, two three-family homes, and a four-family home at 186, 190, 193, and 197 Farren Ave. from Willmott Properties LLC for a combined sum of $655,000. The city last appraised the four properties as worth a total of $650,200.
On June 5, Re Fund II SFR 1 LLC purchased the three-family house at 299 Norton St. from Norma Arellano for $320,000. The property last sold for $257,000 in 2003, and the city last appraised it as worth $161,500.
On June 17, Re Fund II SFR 1 LLC purchased the duplex at 32 Palmieri Ave. from Christine Hall for $255,000. The property last sold for $137,000 in 2001, and the city last appraised it as worth $193,000.
On June 9, Re Fund II SFR 1 LLC purchased the two-family home at 14 Market St. from 6 Market Street KD Holdings LLC for $140,000. The property last sold for $150,000 in 2014, and the city last appraised it as worth $131,500.
On June 1, Re Fund II SFR 1 LLC purchased the two-family home at 354 Blatchley Ave. from Alexander Schaller for $135,000. The property last sold for $60,000 in 2007, and the city last appraised it as worth $89,400.
And also on June 1, Re Fund II SFR 1 LLC purchased the single-family home at 71 Osborn Ave. from Richard and Gwendolyn Bell for $85,000. The property last sold for $63,500 in 1985, and the city last appraised it as worth $168,700.
Previous property sale coverage:
• Beacon Bulks Up 9th Sq Holdings
• Lot Buyer Promises Affordable Apartments
• Mandy Picks Up 10 Houses For $2.2M
• ConnCAT Buys Dixwell Clinic Building
• City Buys Walt’s Cleaners For Dixwell Plan
• 2nd Try Adds $1M To Purchase Price
• 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