Remi Gets Vegas Block Apartments for $975K

A historic downtown apartment building was sold at auction on June 23, after the current owner fell behind on taxes and his loan obligation.

The Vegas Block Apartments building, 154 N. Main St., sold for $975,000 to Remi Hinxhia, of Associated Enterprises Inc., who also owns a number of buildings in Concord, including 146 N. Main St., right next door.

Auctioneer James St. Jean said six bidders, including four qualifying bidders who came to the auction with checks for $100,000, participated.

Pricing started low but quickly rose as Hinxhia and others went back and forth in the bidding process. One couple took off in the middle of the auction when the bidding climbed above $800,000. Once the bidding reached the $825,000 mark, Hinxhia could be seen grimacing that the price continued to rise but seemed happy and relieved by eventually winning.

“The property attaches my property,” he said. “I need to protect my investment and that’s what it is.”

Hinxhia said he goes through and inspects all of his apartments at 146 N. Main St. every six months for bed bugs and roaches. Recently, three of the 27 apartments in that building were revealed to have bed bugs that came from the Vegas Block Apartments.

“They were coming from the other side,” he said.

Hinxhia told St. Jean during the paperwork process that he was undecided about participating in the auction with his mother saying, “Go for it,” and his wife saying forget it, noting that everything in life took risk. In the end, the fact that he owned the apartment building next door and had invested a lot of money to improve the building made it worth it. Hinxhia said it would take even more money to fix up but in the end, he was betting it would be worth it.

Others connected to downtown buildings and housing were at the auction, including Rosemary Heard of CATCH Neighborhood Housing and Mark Ciborowski of Ciborowski Associates, whose family owns a number of buildings downtown, stood by and watched the action but didn’t participate.

“(I was) interested to see what it would go for,” Heard said while Ciborowski didn’t offer comment.

During the last eight to 10 months, St. Jean said, the real estate market seemed to be stabilizing and pointed to this auction as proof. He noted that the building went for a lot more money than it would have been auctioned off at a couple of years ago.

“We would have had one bidder or maybe two,” he said. “We had six, with participation … it’s getting better.”

Hinxhia said it was “still a little early” to talk about what his long-term plans were for the building but added that he would be speaking with his lawyers to find out what he could do to resolve tenancy issues in an attempt to limit the amount of crime that is occurring in the building.

“I’ve think there are no more than 10 tenants,” he said. “I don’t know for sure, but I see a lot of people coming out. I see a lot of outsiders coming in to spend the night … I want to do my best, as I did (at 146 N. Main St.) … I have 27 units, all are full, my apartments are clean … hopefully I’ll be lucky enough with this other one.”