by Thomas Breen
A West Hartford-based real estate company has purchased an 86-unit, mixed-use building at the corner of Chapel and Church streets for more than $20 million.
That property transaction was recorded on the city’s land records database on Tuesday.
According to a warranty deed filed on that date, Dobbs Crossing Associates LLP paid Block 235 Development Associates LLC a total of $20,086,774 to purchase the commercial-residential property at 852 Chapel St.
That six-story, 86-unit building — also known by the address of 109 Church St. — is named The CenterPointe. It was last appraised by the city for tax purposes as worth $16,391,600.
The seller of the building is a holding company controlled by Anthony Schaffer of the New Haven-based firm C.A. White, a company that has owned the property since 2000.
The buyer of the building is a holding company controlled by The Simon Konover Company of West Hartford, which also built and owns One Century tower at 265 Church St. as well as a parking garage nearby on Grove.
“We love New Haven,” The Simon Konover Company Vice President Newton Brainard told the Independent in a phone interview Thursday. He said that the family-owned real estate company has invested in the city since the 1980s, with the construction of One Century Tower. Even though they’re based out of West Hartford, “we see great opportunity in New Haven.”
Brainard said that the 80-plus apartments at CenterPointe are “very, very, very occupied,” with only one or two empty units. He said the ground-floor retail spaces are also currently occupied — by Snipes, T-Mobile, and Urban Beauty Supply — and that the new landlord has no plans to change up the commercial tenants.
Brainard praised the property’s previous landlord, C.A. White, for investing in the building over the decades and keeping it full. “That kind of seller is very attractive to us.”
He said the Konover company plans to be a “long-term holder” of the property. The building has “no glaring capital issues;” the new landlord plans on making “some upgrades” to the interior amenity space, and perhaps a “relatively modest upgrade” over time to the apartments themselves.
Brainard also praised the redevelopment of that block of Chapel between Church and Orange — which recently saw 166 new apartments open atop formerly vacant lots — as making the CenterPointe all the more appealing of a building to buy.
A bronze plaque posted to the wall on the Church Street side of the building states that the building, once called The Cutler Building, was originally constructed in July 1861. It was re-dedicated on Oct. 18, 2004 as the CenterPointe.
Click here to read an October 2004 article in the Yale Daily News about the opening of The CenterPointe as 83 luxury apartments.