Thomas Breen photo
100 Howe St.: $10 (not a typo) in 1994; $11 million in in 2019.
New Haven’s apartment market continues sizzling:
• Developer drops over $15 million on six Dwight properties, including apartment tower and surface lot near Yale.
• Feldman brothers shell out $6 million-plus on two East Rock apartment complexes that hadn’t changed hands in over three decades.
Those separate deals, among the most recent property sales in town, took place over two days.
According to the city land records database, Broadway Living LLC, a holding company owned by Cambridge Realty Partners Principal Nicholas Falker, paid $11,912,732 on Feb. 13 to 100 Howe Street Associates LLC, a holding company owned by David Ornato, for the six-story, 84-unit apartment complex at 100 Howe St.
The apartment tower last sold for $10 in 1994, when Ornato’s company picked up the foreclosed, 1925-built complex from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, receiver for New England Savings Bank. The city last appraised the two properties in 2017 at a combined value of nearly $3.8 million.
The deal also landed Falker a surface parking lot at 104 Howe St., immediately adjacent to the apartment tower.
Cambridge Realty Partners
Cambridge Realty Partners’ Nick Falker.
In a separate property transaction between Falker and Ornato that also took place on Feb. 13, Falker’s company paid Ornato’s company $3,387,268 for four more residential properties near that same intersection of Howe Street and Edgewood Avenue.
In that transaction, Falker acquired the two-family house at 61 Edgewood Ave., the three-family house at 65 Edgewood Ave., the six-unit apartment building at 94 Howe St., and the six-unit apartment building at 98 Howe St.
In total, Falker’s company paid Ornato’s company $15.3 million for the six Dwight properties.
Falker did not respond to multiple requests for comment by the publication time of this article.
According to the company’s website, his company, Cambridge Realty Partners, “acquires, develops and manages real estate in the United States and Mexico.”
The company was founded in Hartford in 1978 by Michael Falker. Its headquarters are now in Wooster Square at 817 Grand Ave. The company also has offices in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Thomas Breen photos
A surface parking lot at 104 Howe St.
According to its website, Cambridge focused its investments in “institutional quality office properties” in the Northeast and in Texas from 1978 through 1987. After the passage of the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994, Cambridge took advantage of the elimination of tariffs and reduced capitalization and interest rates to acquire and develop industrial and manufacturing properties in Mexico.
Starting in 2015, the company pivoted yet again, this time to focus on the New Haven multifamily residential market.
“Yale University is the dominant economic force in New Haven,” Cambridge’s website reads. “Yale is highly stable in virtually all economic circumstances. The Yale affiliated population is currently increasing and the campus is expanding.
“This profile reveals attractive opportunities for highly selective multifamily acquisition and upgrade.”
MOD Equities Spends $6.6M In East Rock
Thomas Breen photo
420-424 Whitney Ave.
Aliyya Swaby photo
MOD Equities’ Jacob Feldman at a 2016 BZA hearing.
A day before the 100 Howe purchase, MOD Equities, the real estate company run by brothers Jacob and Josef Feldman of New York, paid $6.6 million for a 15-unit apartment complex at 420 – 424 Whitney Ave. and a 19-unit apartment complex right across the street at 431 – 437 Whitney Ave. Both apartments were owned by holding companies associated with the East Rock landlord Hadley Inc.
The complex at 420 – 424 Whitney was built in 1920. It last sold in 1988 for $225,000. The complex at 431 – 437 Whitney was built in 1925, and last sold in 1983 for just over $463,000. The city last appraised the two buildings in 2017 at a combined value of just over $3.2 million.
In a phone interview with the Independent, Jacob Feldman said that MOD plans to manage the properties as they are and does not plan on any further development or construction at the two Whitney Avenue sites.
“It’s a rare opportunity to be able to buy such beautiful buildings on Whitney Avenue,” he said. “They obviously don’t trade very often. … We were lucky to have the opportunity to make a deal.”
Thomas Breen photo
431-437 Whitney Ave.
He said that the acquisition is the latest in MOD’s decade-long investment in New Haven residential properties throughout East Rock and Downtown.
“We hope to be here for the foreseeable future,” he said. “We believe in the city very much.”
He said that MOD is still working on two other major Downtown developments that it received zoning approval for nearly three years ago: a proposed five-story, 46-unit apartment complex at the old Harold’s building at 19 Elm St., and a proposed 18-unit apartment expansion at the Joseph English building at 418 State St.
“We are working with an architect to design the most appropriate building,” Jacob said about the delayed Harold’s apartment project. He said MOD had to go back to the drawing board and redo its designs for the project in order to comply with the development terms approved by the zoning board. He said he did not have a definite timeline he could share for the development of either the Harold’s or the Joe English building projects.
Previous property sale coverage:
• 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