Perlich, at 414 Chapel: "Somebody just has to do it." Former mill building. Future apartments? Jonathan Perlich walked down the vast, empty fourth floor of a 19th-century mill building — beneath wooden beams and beside exposed brick walls interrupted by window after window after window.Outsi de the sun shone on the newly built warehouses and boarded-up factories that stand east of Wooster Square.Despite a years-long delay, Perlich insisted, this industrial-turned-office-turned-vacant building near the Mill River will be converted into 87 new places to live.Perlich detailed that $20 million redevelopment-plan revival Thursday during an interview at 414 Chapel St.The building, at the corner of Chapel and East streets, dates back to the 1880s. It was formerly home to the William Schollhorn Co., where New Haven factory workers made scissors and shears and pliers and other hardware.Outside the fourth-floor windows Thursday afternoon, one could see, to the west, the downtown skyline; to the south, the concrete swoop of I‑95; to the north and east, a Sol LeWitt-inspired kaleidoscopic mural, surface parking lots, the Chapel Street salt piles, a car repair shop, the Suzio concrete mixing plant, the glint of the Mill River, and, in the distance, the majestic ruins of English Station.Perlich is the new lead developer for a 414 Chapel redevelopment project that dates back to 2019.Back then, a company controlled by local landlords Mendy Paris and Sim Levenhartz purchased the former factory building for $4.65 million and won City Plan Commission approval to convert it into 87 new studio, one-bedroom, and two-bedroom apartments.At the time, the building was a little more than half occupied by a range of office tenants, including Head Start and All Our Kin. An office directory still hanging by the elevator on the first floor lists past tenants as the state Bureau of Rehabilitation Services, the Elderly Service Division / Ombudsman’s office, and the CT Junior Republic — Family Support Center, among others. For six years, as new luxury apartment complexes popped up again and again on the western edge of Wooster Square, residential redevelopments on the industrial eastern side of the neighborhood — like at the Hamilton Street clock shop and Peter Chapman’s building at 433 Chapel — stalled. Such was the case for 414 Chapel. The project was too expensive to build. It fell down the priority list for landlords who had gone on a real estate-buying spree right around the start of the Covid pandemic.Perlich said on Thursday that 414 Chapel’s redevelopment has been revived in a big way.The 31-year-old Alabama native, who co-owns the Quinnipiac Rivera Marina and has worked on several residential developments in Meriden, runs a consulting company called J&J Consulting. That’s how he came to set up a Fair Haven business for the son of the Israeli prime minister. That’s how he’s working to bring back to life 414 Chapel.All at a time when the city is again stepping up its planning efforts to foster a greener, mixed-use, residential and commercial neighborhood out of the Mill River district.The Chapel-East Street property is still owned by Sim Levenhartz through the holding company 414 Chapel LLC. Perlich said Levenharz’s company will remain the owner and ​“sponsor” of the project. Perlich is now the lead developer, but does not have any ownership stake in the company that owns the property.Perlich has brought on a new development team — Rise Architects, ICO Design, JRS Engineering, among others — to make the 87-apartment plan a reality. He said the building’s final office tenants, the state Judicial Branch’s child support services, moved out in January. That means the building is empty except for the ​“field office” he’s set up on the first floor. He takes Zoom meetings with development partners there and often spends his time all alone in the cavernous building, plotting its return to life.Perlich said the finances for this expected $16-$20 million redevelopment are almost all in place. He’s lined up a ​“senior lender” who has ​“worked across New Haven” and is ​“very supportive” of the project. He’s deep into conversations with the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority (CHFA) for a Build For CT loan that would result in 20 percent of the apartments reserved for renters making no more than 80 percent of the area median income (AMI), which currently translates to $74,250 for a two-person household. The rest of the units will be leased at market rents. (A CHFA spokesperson confirmed that the agency has received a funding application for 414 Chapel, but otherwise declined to comment on the project.)Perlich said he hopes to begin construction and have the building open and renting out to new tenants within 18 months.Perlich said he doesn’t plan on going back to the City Plan Commission for a new site plan. Yes, he could have pursued a larger development with more than 87 apartments, especially with the density bonuses included in the city’s inclusionary zoning ordinance, which passed in 2022. But that would have taken more time, and resulted in smaller apartments and potentially bigger changes to the existing building itself. Instead, last summer, he and his partners won a five-year extension to the approved 2019 site plan.Under his current plan, there won’t be any demolition or additions to the century-plus-old 414 Chapel building. The facade will remain intact. Almost all of the work will be interior, along with new landscaping and greenery added to the property’s capacious surface parking lot at the corner of Chapel and East.Perlich said his new team has redesigned the apartments to take into account the glut of luxury complexes that have been built in recent years downtown and in Wooster Square. He wants to serve ​“the individual who’s in the middle” — Yale nurses and biotech officer workers making $70,000 to $120,000 a year. In the grand scheme of things, that’s quite a high income. But in New Haven’s tight housing market, that can sometimes be barely enough to afford rent. ​“You’re still kind of in a pickle.”Perlich recalled renting a four-bedroom house in Alabama for $400. When he first moved to New Haven, he was ​“shocked” to move into a Wooster Square apartment at $1,350 a month. He and his wife tried to buy a house in Fair Haven Heights on the Quinnipiac River, he said, but got way out-bid. They recently bought a house in West Haven instead.The most important factor needed to make this project actually happen is ​“focusing on it, making it a priority,” he said when asked why he thinks he’ll be able to complete this 414 Chapel redevelopment after so many years of delays. The team’s in place. The money’s almost there. ​“Somebody just has to do it.”Perlich on 414 Chapel's fourth floor: "I don't have any problem with being alone in a building." The building's current parking lot, to be greenified. Detritus of office building past. A digital rendering of a future "Harbor Mills" apartment at 414 Chapel. Looking northeast from the parking lot ... ... and west from up high, across the Mill River District towards downtown. ...read more read less