In Danbury, off-off-campus housing

A Danbury developer is putting the finishing touches on a 115-unit downtown apartment for upper-class students attending Western Connecticut State University about two blocks away, and is getting ready to break ground on the first of a multiphase project that will eventually see 586 condominium units in the city”™s center.
“We should break ground sometime this summer,” said Dan Bertram, executive vice president and chief operating officer of BRT, of the condominium project. The first phase of the gated community will be a 21-unit, three-story condominium at the corner of Main Street and Kennedy Avenue, and should be completed by this time next year, he said ”“ depending on how quickly various state and local approvals can be obtained.
Once that first phase is completed, “we”™ll be very much sales driven from there,” Bertram said.
The apartment project and the larger condominium project represent the first new, privately financed, market-rate living units for the downtown in several decades, spurred in part by tax referrals enacted by the Republican-controlled Common Council. Individuals buying a condominium unit will not pay city property taxes for seven years, while BRT will have a seven-year tax deferral on the apartment building.
“We”™re really sort of blazing a trail,” Bertram said of the condominium project. “We”™re hanging our hats on a couple things ”“ keeping this at an affordable price point, and the lower cost of ownership for a buyer looking at a $350,000 investment with us versus somewhere else” because of the seven-year tax deferral. “The average condominium owner will be saving $500 a month in taxes with us, and that”™s where the tax incentive comes into play and gives us a marketing advantage.”

The apartments and condominiums come at a time when urban living is on the ascendancy. “You have to look at what factors are in place in this market and how it relates to other opportunities in the area,” Bertram said. Other major condominium projects in the city are in the luxury price ranges and are several miles from the city”™s center. “They”™re all at higher price points, and we have a lot more people in our broader market than our competitors have in theirs,” he said. “And you want people with disposal incomes living in the downtown area.”

Private dorms
The apartment building, called Brookview Commons ( HYPERLINK “http://www.brookviewcommons.com” www.brookviewcommons.com), began on the drawing boards as market-rate studio, one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments in a four-story building atop an enclosed parking garage. But an unexpected proposal changed BRT”™s direction.
“The university”™s fundraising arm approached Dan Bertram with the idea of buying the building so it could be used as a dorm,” said Paul Steinmetz, interim director of university relations. “We”™re tight on dorm space, and the Western Connecticut State University Foundation hit on this idea it would be useful space.”
Bertram liked the idea, Steinmetz said, but the idea “fell apart as it got further up the chain of command” in the state university bureaucracy. The higher the proposal got, the more negative the comments became, “and both sides decided it wouldn”™t happen so last fall both sides walked away, in a friendly way.”
Bertram, however, returned with his own proposal to turn the building into a company-managed private dormitory with no connection to the university. “The university liked the idea,” Steinmetz said, especially because of the lack of student housing on both the midtown and westside campuses.
About 60 percent of the university”™s full-time undergraduates live at home or find off-campus housing; the remaining 40 percent are resident students. But the university has dormitory space for only 1,200 students, leaving about 3,200 looking for off-campus housing in private houses and apartments, he said.

And the state university system”™s 10-year master plan calls for only another 300 dorm rooms to be built during that time, if they are built all.
Bertram”™s change of plans, however, didn”™t sit well with some Democratic members of the Common Council, who want to rescind the tax deferral. “I was a little disappointed they didn”™t see the big picture,” he said.
The apartment building already has 100 deposits for this fall. “We believe we have a very compelling pitch for the students looking for living options. It”™s a brand new building with all the bells and whistles. I”™m really excited about it, and think it will have a huge impact on Danbury,” Bertram said.