The New Haven skyline. (Courtesy Photo / Public Domain / Charles Barneby)

Fairfield developer Post Road Residential sold a triangular parcel of land in New Haven’s East Rock neighborhood to a company planning to open a marijuana dispensary on the site.

According to a warranty deed filed with the city of New Haven clerk’s office, an affiliate of Post Road sold 1041 State St. for $3.15 million last week to an LLC controlled by David Salinas, a local entrepreneur who received city permits for a dispensary on the site last year.

The New Haven Independent first reported the sale, and quoting Salinas as saying his company had not yet applied for the relevant state permits for the new dispensary. Once they get the permits, the news outlet reports, they plan to convert an old building on the site to house their operation.

Post Road Residential had permitted a second phase of its 293-unit “Corsair” apartment building on the State Street site – across the street from the Corsair – in 2021. The project was enabled only after a complex set of land sales and swaps between the state, the city and Post Road, as part of the building site was actually land set aside for an unbuilt freeway. Those land swaps were completed in 2022.

In between permitting the 75-unit building and and today, however, Post Road Residential and every other multifamily developer confronted the huge surge in interest rates and construction costs that sent new multifamily starts through the floor in nearly all of the country as banks and equity investors, alike, pulled back from financing developments.