🔒Greenblatt builds $70M affordable housing empire

Arthur Greenblatt helped steer Simsbury-based Vesta Corp. into one of the top 100 largest affordable multifamily property management companies in the United States, ranked by the National Affordable Housing Management Association — a position poised to rise.

Vesta wants to increase its units, roughly 7,600 today, by about 30 percent in three years. Its goal: 10,000 units by 2020.

Vesta — which develops, manages and owns affordable housing — has units in 42 communities in Connecticut, New Jersey, Ohio, Texas, Virginia and Washington, D.C. It doubled its units the past five years.

Greenblatt, who is president, CEO, co-founder and now sole owner, worked closely with co-founder/co-owner Steven Erie to build Vesta to what it is today, with roughly $70 million in annual revenues from rents, until Erie retired last November.

The two met in 1970 as neighbors in adjoining apartments in Manchester, when Greenblatt was in law school and Erie worked at Pratt & Whitney. Erie moved for an Amtrak job, then returned to Hartford to work at Covenant Insurance Co. Greenblatt did real estate law in private practice, then joined the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority (CHFA) in 1977 as its first general counsel to get government housing experience. He anticipated returning to a law firm after a couple years, but saw opportunity in the sector and, having majored in finance before law school, wanted to try his hand at business.

“It would be nothing to be ashamed of, developing affordable housing,” he thought, seeing the need.

After about 2½ years at CHFA, Greenblatt knew he had to act.

“By that time, I felt that if I was there for my fourth anniversary, I was going to wake up a bureaucrat and I was petrified,” he said.

Erie, with whom he had stayed in touch, had a similar entrepreneurial itch and they began a business plan in 1980.

Greenblatt envisioned what he coined a “traveling housing finance agency,” more nimble and creative than government.

He wanted to tailor multifamily financing to a city, town or developer's housing objective, not force them into state molds. He and Erie launched CDC Financial Corp. in 1981 and by the late-'80s, CDC did some property management and construction, but mostly took a backseat to co-developers, raising equity for investors, Greenblatt said. The pair weathered a trying housing crisis in the early 1990s. Finances were tight and layoffs ensued.

They hung on and in 1998 morphed CDC's portfolio into what became Vesta, focusing on development, management and ownership of affordable housing.

Staff were added as the company grew. Today, it has about 40 employees in Simsbury and 225 property managers, maintenance people and others nationally.

Greenblatt said he and Erie made a good team.

“We were partners for 36½ years, and never had an argument,” said Greenblatt.

At 70, Greenblatt intends to work at least 10 more years. His two sons work at Vesta: Josh, executive vice president and co-head of acquisitions and development, and Aaron, a lawyer and counsel. A daughter, Elysa, is partner in a New York City law firm. Greenblatt's wife, Zadelle, just retired from teaching.

The vast majority of Vesta's residents have incomes under 60 percent of the area median income, the threshold to utilize low income housing tax credit funding and attract investors to fund property development, one of many government assistance tools Vesta employs.

Vesta mostly does housing rehabilitation/renovation projects. It seldom spends less than $30,000 per unit on rehabilitation and as much as $120,000, Greenblatt said.

“If we can't do it right, we'll pass on the transaction,” he said. “We're long-term holders.” That includes building learning or community centers at properties, where space allows, for offerings like day care, Boys & Girls Clubs and YMCA afterschool programs, or computer labs to provide residents Internet access.

“We want to provide our residents with … the quality housing,” Greenblatt said, but also things like the social services, “giving them the tools to help them reach their goals in life.”

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