A South Dakota-based developer has purchased multiple properties in New Haven’s Hill neighborhood for more than $4.3 million, clearing the way for construction of a planned multi-family development.New Haven’s City Plan Commission in October 2022 approved plans by developer John Lockhart of Catalina Buffalo Holdings LLC to build a 194-unit apartment complex.The cluster of buildings […]
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A South Dakota-based developer has purchased multiple properties in New Haven’s Hill neighborhood for more than $4.3 million, clearing the way for construction of a planned multi-family development.
New Haven’s City Plan Commission in October 2022 approved plans by developer John Lockhart of Catalina Buffalo Holdings LLC to build a 194-unit apartment complex.
The cluster of buildings recently purchased at the corner of Congress and Davenport will be demolished. In its place, Catalina Buffalo will build a five-story complex with mostly market rate apartments, and 5% set aside as affordable.
Catalina Buffalo was the buyer on the deals recorded Feb. 22, which include:
• 354 Davenport Ave., and 859 Congress Ave., sold by Clark-Son Company, Inc., for $1.5 million.
• 380 and 384 Davenport Ave., and 879 Congress Ave., sold by Herb Mandelker and Robert Rawden for $1.1 million.
• 370 Davenport Ave., and 860 Congress Ave., sold by PK&R LLC and Paragon Construction for $800,000.
• 348-350 Davenport Ave., sold by Adam Y Scheps for $530,000.
• 326 Davenport Ave., sold by 326 Davenport Realty LLC for $420,000.
According to plans, the $60 million project will contain 73 studio apartments, 87 one-bedroom units, 26 two-bedrooms and eight, three-bedrooms. Apartments will range in size from 550 to 1,445 square feet.
The building will also have a large rooftop deck with grills, lounges and gathering areas, a full-size gym, a large interior courtyard, and two amenity-style spaces on each side of the rooftop deck, Lockhart said.
Developers are aiming for demolition by this fall, and hope to break ground either this year or early next spring.
The development team is also assisting existing tenants with relocating.
Some pre-demolition remediation of materials inside the properties is required, but Lockhart said, “the site is extremely clean by New Haven standards, the existing structures on the assemblage parcels were the first modern construction on our parcels. We have no urban fill to worry about and no heavy industry was ever conducted inside the buildings.”
Leasing will begin roughly six months after completion, and will be handled by a professional third party manager, Lockhart said.
He expects rents will be $200 to $300 lower per month than other new construction residential properties in the immediate vicinity of New Haven’s medical district, he said.
Before the project was approved, a vote was delayed slightly due to a contentious public hearing in September 2022, before the commission ultimately approved the application in October.
Concerns from residents about affordability and gentrification with the luxury apartment plan caused the commission to delay a vote.
“I do feel that this item warrants additional community engagement around this issue,” City Plan Director Laura Brown said.
But Carolyn Kone, attorney for Catalina Buffalo, said other large apartment projects were approved without additional public input, and she feared the delay “creates a terrible precedent. I don’t know why this particular project was being singled out for any special treatment.”
“We are in an environment with really increasing interest rates, lending sources that are terrified of what's been going on with the site plan application, and sellers who are demanding additional deposits because of the delays,” Kone said.
Lockhart said that his company had only received positive feedback from immediate neighbors of the proposed complex and expressed frustration that his project had been caught up in larger issues around gentrification.
Still, Lockhart said, “the couple month delay did not have much of an effect on our project, as we were always going to have a period after closing on the assemblage and prior to demolition and construction where we needed to relocate some of the existing tenants.”
Nearly six months after approval, Lockhart said the interest rates “have made things tougher and are outrageous when compared to this time last year.”
Luckily, “construction costs seem to be evening out,” and the costs of some materials are coming down, according to Lockhart.
“But none of the construction cost changes are comparable to how much the change in interest rates has affected the underwriting of large projects like ours,” Lockhart said.
He is optimistic about the project in the vicinity of New Haven’s burgeoning life science industry. He said other developments in this area “will continue to grow and create more high paying jobs, and those folks will need somewhere to live.”
New Haven’s market is very tight, he said, with limited sites for large-scale development, and even fewer within walking distance from its job-dense medical district.
“The city is achieving both a density of businesses and resident capacity that is allowing it to rapidly move out of its last late stages of post-industrial decay into something new and exciting,” Lockhart said. “So while we wish that debt was cheaper, we aren’t dissuaded from this rare development opportunity.”
