Yale University consolidated its control of the southwest corner of York Street and Chapel Street by purchasing two adjacent brick townhouses for $2.85 million, among the city’s latest property transactions.
According to the city land records database, on July 27, Yale bought 168 York St. and 170 York St. for $2.85 million from Hot Dog of New Haven LLC.
Those two three-story, five-unit, residential-commercial properties — which are part of a single building that was constructed around 1870 — last sold in 1993 for a combined sum of $475,000. The city last appraised the two properties as worth a total of $809,600.
“It’s been 27 years that we’ve owned the building,” said Mary Tirozzi, one of the townhouses’ previous co-owners, during a Monday morning phone call with the Independent. “I just thought it was time to sell.”
The building’s other co-owner, Joseph Goodwin, told the Independent that he plans to keep running 168 York Street Cafe, the gay bar on the ground floor of one of the townhouses, even though he is now one of the building’s tenants and no longer its co-owner.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said. He said the bar is open Tuesdays through Sundays, and that he has a commercial lease with the building’s new owner: Yale University.
168-170 York.
A spokesperson for Yale did not provide a comment by the publication time of this article as to how the university plans to use the two newly acquired properties going forward.
The York Street land deal marks the university’s second multi-million-dollar real estate purchase in as many years at the southwest corner of Chapel and York. It also adds to two additional properties to the university’s near total site control at that downtown intersection. According to the city assessor’s database, Yale owns properties at 1126 Chapel, 1142 Chapel, 1156 Chapel, 142 York, 146 York, 148 York, 150 York, 166 York, 168 York, and 170 York. The only properties at that corner it does not own are 1144 Chapel and 1150 Chapel.
In June 2019, Yale spent $3.8 million buying a three-story, retail-residential building at 166 York St. and a two-story, retail-office building at 1142 Chapel St. from a holding company owned by Pike International’s Shmully Hecht.
The university subsequently demolished the 1142 Chapel St. building, which formerly housed a pawn shop and which the city’s Building Department found in October 2019 to be structurally unsafe.
At a Historic District Commission meeting about the 1142 Chapel tear-down, Yale’s lead planner insisted that the university did not at that time have any definitive plans for that Chapel Street space.
The 1142 Chapel St. is currently a fenced-in, vacant grassy lot (see below.)
1142 Chapel.
According to the city tax collector’s site, Yale paid a total of $14,090.62 in taxes on the 1142 Chapel St. property in Fiscal Year 2019 – 2020, which ran from July 2019 through July 2021. The university has not yet paid its first $7,184.73 installment of taxes for the current fiscal year, which started July 1. The second $7,000-plus tax installment for the year comes due in January 2021.
Westville Apartments Sold For $2.75M; Downtown Frathouse Sold For $1.5M+
Google Maps photo
58 Fountain St.
In other recent local property sales, on July 15, a holding company owned by local landlords Abraham Meer and Avi Dagan purchased the 22-unit Westville apartment complex at 58 Fountain St. for $2.75 million from a holding company owned by Justin Goldberg.
The complex last sold for $1.8 million in 2016, and the city last appraised it as worth $1.69 million.
The Fountain Street land deal is the latest multi-million-dollar rental property sale in what has been a busy year and a half for Goldberg, a developer who runs the Fairfield/Bridgeport-based Navarino Property Group.
Since January 2019, Goldberg has sold five local apartment complexes containing a total of 157 rental units for a combined sum of nearly $18.3 million. That’s over $6 million more than the sum total of how much Goldberg paid for those properties when he acquired them between 2014 and 2016. Those properties recently sold by Goldberg include 457 Whalley Ave., 25 Springside Ave., 725 Whitney Ave., 1495 Ella T. Grasso Blvd., and 58 Fountain St.
When asked if this Fountain Street sale is part of a broader exit of his company from New Haven’s real estate market, Goldberg replied by email, “We still have assets in New Haven and we continue to enhance the quality of life for our residents. This transaction was just a single property in the Westville neighborhood.”
Thomas Breen photo
31 High St.
And on Aug. 3, Robin Sunrise LLC, a holding company owned by local attorney Scott Hurwitz, purchased 31 High St. for $1.525 million from a holding company owned by the Richmond, Va.-based fraternity Sigma Phi Epsilon.
That three-story, 14-unit apartment building last sold for $1.1 million in 2006, and the city last appraised it as worth $677,600.
Hurwitz declined to comment for this story.
Previous property sale coverage:
• So Long “Heights On River.” Hello, Mandy
• 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