The city’s housing authority has finally purchased the former Hamilton Street clock factory for a total of around $4 million, completing a major step in its long-in-the-works plan to turn the industrial property into 130 new homes.
That sale of 133 Hamilton St. — which took place between the now-former owner Taom Heritage New Haven LLC and the Housing Authority of the City of New Haven (HANH) — was finalized on Wednesday, according to city land records.
The warranty deed does not include the final sale price. The housing authority board voted in August 2023 to buy the property for $4.5 million. HANH President Shenae Draughn told the Independent on Thursday that the property sold for $4.5 million.
Meanwhile, Bill Kraus — who controls Taom Heritage, the company that sold the ex-factory to the housing authority — told the Independent that the final sale price was actually $4 million. He said the price dropped from $4.5 million to $4 million after the housing authority agreed to take on more of the property’s environmental remediation. Kraus estimated the property is “90 percent cleaned up.”
For Kraus, the sale marks a milestone for a project he has been working on since 2009, for a property he has admired for decades.
“It has certainly been a long time coming,” he told the Independent on Thursday. “I’m absolutely thrilled — it’s still sinking in.”
“This is a tremendous opportunity for [Elm City Communities] to assist the City in achieving its goal of providing quality affordable housing and preserving this historically significant structure as well as promoting community and economic development by creating dozens of jobs for New Haven residents,” Draughn told the Independent in an email statement on Thursday.
The housing authority plans to transform the former clock factory into an approximately 130-unit residential community, where all units will serve low-income or moderate-income households. The project is expected to cost around $70 million, financed through a combination of tax-exempt private-activity bonds, 4% Low-Income Housing Tax Credits, federal and state Historic Tax Credits, and other public-private funding sources.
It has been a long journey for Kraus to get to this point. As a specialist in redeveloping historic buildings, he first learned of the old clock factory in the 1990s from the late local arts visionary Bitsie Clark, when he was looking for places to create affordable housing for artists to live and work in. She told him of the “oddball art” she had seen at an exhibition in the factory.
In the past, the building housed a troupe of mimes, a hardcore rock club, a Black dance club, the Bad Ass White Boys motorcycle club headquarters, a strip club with a swimming pool built into its ceiling, and more, Kraus said. He’s working with local director Gorman Bechard on a movie all about it.
“I fell in love with the building instantly,” Kraus recalled.
Clark introduced Kraus to then-owner Tony Yagovane. Kraus and Yagovane talked about working together, and Yagovane introduced him to his daughters. When he died, his daughters reached out to Kraus and in 2009, they began working together. They secured a number of grants and eventually were able to sell the property to Taom Heritage in 2018.
After the sale to Taom Heritage, which at the time was controlled by Scott Reed of the Oregon-based Reed Community Partners, Kraus was the person who managed the site and remediations.
Eventually, Taom Heritage failed to follow through on its plan to redevelop the former clock factory into 130 apartments. When the property was in the midst of a city tax foreclosure in 2023 and Taom Heritage was looking to sell, the housing authority announced its plans to purchase the historic complex for $4.5 million.
The deal between HANH and Taom Heritage has been held up in recent years by Taom’s failure to complete environmental remediation at the site; the building was beset by squatters and fires and anti-blight and safety notices from the city.
Then, in September 2025, Kraus and a group of clock shop creditors stripped Reed of decision-making authority at Taom Heritage via an involuntary-bankruptcy lawsuit. Kraus then took control of the holding company that owned the Hamilton Street property — until its sale to the housing authority.
“It’s a very complicated building to get your arms around,” Kraus said. “The housing authority really deserves a lot of credit for spending the time and energy and money.”
For the last month, Kraus has been visiting the site every day, working to make sure that it’s secure. He said it was hard not to visit again on Wednesday and Thursday. “I’m almost still in shock,” he said.
The housing authority’s board voted unanimously in December to authorize a $1 million predevelopment loan for the clock-shop project to the Glendower Group — the housing authority’s nonprofit development arm — and to commit $21 million in tax-exempt bonds towards the development, with stated plans to close on the property in January.
Then the public housing agency planned to close on the property by the end of May, as its board approved the assumption of Taom Heritage’s forgivable $4 million loan from the state Department of Economic and Community Development (DECD), which will be used to complete environmental remediation work and lease most new units by 2032.
Draughn told the Independent on Thursday that the housing authority’s first priority is securing the property and existing building, and adding exterior lighting to the site. She said that in the next 30 days, the housing authority will be hiring an architect and a contractor.
Construction is expected to begin in the first half of 2028.
“This could not be happening without the great support we’ve had from the state DECD, as well as the city,” Kraus said, not just in the redevelopment process over the years but in the final push in getting to the sale.
“This is a really important, historic building,” Kraus said. “You throw a stone in New Haven and you’ll hit somebody who has some connection to the building.”
Will Kraus miss his work with the clock factory?
“I won’t miss being the person responsible for the building at all,” Kraus said, “and I’m thrilled to be able to participate in the final, full restoration of the building.”
It’s not the end of the clock factory for Kraus. He’s staying on as a historic preservation consultant for the housing authority, he said, to help secure funding and federal and state historic tax credits, which apply only to historic buildings for renovation.
“A building like this can attract subsidies that augment affordable housing funding,” he said.
The housing authority’s purchase of the former clock factory comes as the agency is also moving forward with plans to build upwards of 2,490 new apartments as part of a “Union Square” project at the former Church Street South site across from Union Station. The housing authority purchased that property for $21 million in 2023.