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August 23, 2017

Hartford welcomes UConn back downtown

Greg Bordonaro Officials gather at the unveiling of UConn's new downtown Hartford campus.
Greg Bordonaro Barnes & Noble in downtown Hartford also celebrated its opening.
Greg Bordonaro UConn President Susan Herbst gives opening remarks at the Hartford campus opening.
By Array

UConn school officials, city and state leaders and others gathered Wednesday morning at the steps of the Hartford Times building to commemorate the long-awaited opening of the University of Connecticut’s downtown Hartford campus.

The $140 million campus at 38 Prospect St., showcased in its complete form for the first time Wednesday, is considered a game-changer for downtown Hartford as it plays home to thousands of students, faculty and staff, adding much needed vibrancy to the center city and Front Street entertainment district.

It also marks the return of UConn to Hartford, where the school long-ago had an outpost until 1970 when it decided to move its satellite campus to West Hartford.

Led outside to the refurbished building’s columned steps by Jonathan The Husky and the UConn marching band, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, UConn President Susan Herbst, Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin, UConn Hartford students, U.S. Senators Richard Blumenthal and Christopher Murphy, U.S. Rep. John Larson, and numerous state and local officials participated in the opening celebration.
  
“This is a historic day. UConn has come home to Hartford,’’ Herbst told a cheering crowd of several hundred.

UConn Hartford, she said, “is a living, breathing institution at the core of this city. It will be a backbone of this city.’’

Malloy said that for years urban areas like Hartford were shunned and the subjects of wishful thinking that somehow their problems would disappear.

“Those days are over,’’ the governor said, noting the state’s investment in relocating UConn to downtown, which will assist Hartford in its recovery and transformation.

Malloy also noted that UConn Hartford is affirmation of the state’s commitment to educating and training Connecticut’s next generation of workers and leaders.

“This is what we’re celebrating,’’ he said. “It is in essence a rebirth and a new birth in one.’’

Classes start Monday at the downtown campus, home to about 2,300 undergraduate and graduate students and almost 300 full- and part-time employees.

When combined with others enrolled in classes at the nearby Graduate Business Learning Center, UConn now will be bringing more than 3,100 students to downtown Hartford businesses, cultural destinations and community organizations.

UConn’s decision to relocate its West Hartford campus to Hartford was announced in 2012, and the school took the last few years to completely renovate the historic Hartford Times building, which had stood vacant for years.

The new campus comprises about 160,000 square feet in the Times anchor building; a nearby 34,500-square-foot building that UConn purchased at 38 Prospect St. to house the School of Social Work; and about 19,200 square feet in the Hartford Public Library in partnership with that organization.

In all, the campus includes more than 232,000 square feet of learning and community space, not counting the additional space that UConn already uses nearby for its Graduate Business Learning Center.

Barnes & Noble also this week opened the new UConn Bookstore location on Front Street directly next to the new campus, where it will offer textbooks and general interest books, a Starbucks café, indoor and outdoor seating, a grab-and-go style food market, and a selection of UConn apparel and other merchandise.

Check out Hartford Business Journal’s and others’ recent coverage of UConn’s downtown Hartford campus:

Grad school programs increasingly call Hartford home

UConn’s Front Street arrival sets off a retail feeding frenzy

As UConn returns, a chapter in Hartford's history is completed

UConn bookstore on pace to open downtown

 

 

 

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