9-7-1998

Behind the purchase of the luxury City View Apartments in Wallingford is an up-and-coming young real estate investor.

Gerry Pigotti, who is all of 25 years old, put together a group of seven local partners who invested $5.65M for the 44-unit City View on Aurora Avenue North. The price they paid developer John Chou for the recently completed project works out to a hefty $113,000 per unit.

They've renamed it Mirabella, which Pigotti said means "beautiful view" in Italian. He knows because he picked up Italian during summers at family homes on the Italian Riviera and Fabriano in central Italy, where he's due to return shortly for another vacation.

The young Pigotti admits to already owning at least three apartment complexes. He got his real estate license while studying accounting at Seattle University. When he was 20, his father, Industrial Plating co-owner, Gilbert Pigotti died and left him $200,000. Pigotti said he made that money his "starting capital" for his growing real estate holdings.