St. Michael’s School Sold, For Apartments

A Branford-based, mother-son development team has closed on its purchase of three long vacant St. Michael’s Church school and convent buildings. They plan to convert the buildings into 23 market-rate apartments.

On Frday, Greene Street Holdings LLC, a holding company owned by Lisa Amato, purchased the three former St. Michael’s school and convent buildings at 234, 240, and 250 Greene St. for $1.2 million, according to city land records.

According to local realtor Lou Proto, who brokered the sale, Amato and her son, Michael Massimino of the Branford-based development company Mass Development LLC, plan on converting the three derelict former church-owned buildings into 23 market-rate apartments. Proto said the new owners should be submitting site plans for the proposed project to the City Plan department within the next month.

Amato and Massimino did not respond to email and phone requests for comment by the publication time of this article.

The sale closure represents the culmination of the church’s years-long endeavor to sell the three vacant buildings just around the corner from the church’s 29 Wooster Pl. location.

Late last year, the church lined up a development company associated with Mandy Management to buy the buildings and turn them into 23 apartments. Neighbors sharply criticized, and ultimately scuttled, that plan over concerns that the project was too dense, contained too few parking spaces, and was being undertaken by a landlord they did not want in the neighborhood.

Then, despite the opposition of half a dozen neighbors, the Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA) granted the church a special exception to cede 15 parking spaces from its 29 Wooster Pl. location to the the former school and convent properties, to make the latter more appealing to prospective developers like Amato and Massimino.

In addition to closing on the former school and convent building sale on Friday, Amato’s holding company also received a $1.25 million mortgage from Silver Heights Development LLC, a Westport-based holding company owned by Tomas Haendler and Seth Greenwald. She then signed an Assignment of Leases and Rents document with Silver Heights, promising the Westport lenders all income derived from leases and rents at the Greene Street properties if she were to default on that loan.

Also on Friday, St. Michael’s Church and Amato’s holding company entered into a Cross Easement Agreement whereby the church granted Amato emergency access to a driveway that runs along the southerly boundary of the church’s property, as well as a ten-foot wide drainage easement to allow for access to and maintenance of an underground drainage line near that same southerly driveway. The church retains its own access to the underground drainage line per the agreement.

On Amato’s side, she granted the church rights to maintain, access, repair, and replace existing utility lines on the Greene Street properties that service the church’s Wooster Place property; the exclusive right to use two handicapped parking spaces on the Greene Street parcels; the right to use the Greene Street parcel’s dumpster; and the right to cross the Greene Street parcel’s surface parking lot by foot or by vehicle for the purposes of accessing the church’s southerly driveway.

In other recent property sales news, the city purchased the foreclosed, three-family West River property at 177 Winthrop Ave for $50,000 from Wells Fargo Bank on March 13.

In East Rock, Nicholas Falker of 550 Whitney Avenue LLC sold the three-story, 16-unit apartment building at 550 Whitney Ave. to Joel Butterly and David Mainiero of 550 Whitney LLC for $2.35 million on March 27. Falker’s development company Cambridge Realty Partners recently announced that it will be building a new 60-unit-plus apartment complex atop an existing surface parking lot at 104 Howe St.

And Robert Kesselman added two more West River condos to his holdings, buying 1243 Ella T. Grasso Blvd., Units A and C for $27,000 each from Jimmy Jansen. The North Haven landlord now owns 22 of the 36 condos at the Westview Commons complex.

Previous property sale coverage:

• 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