The site of the former University of Connecticut campus in West Hartford has sat fallow and blighted since the school moved its operations to downtown Hartford in 2017.
However, work will soon begin on fixing up the land to be redeveloped into hundreds of units of housing. Using $6 million in state blight remediation grants, the 34-acre property will become usable again.
The grant funding is integral in getting the project done and making the land usable again, according to West Hartford Mayor Sheri Cantor. The project will also add more variety of housing to the town, Cantor said.
“That will increase overall housing supply and improve affordability across our whole community,” Cantor said. “New ownership town homes, especially appealing to empty nesters, helping free up single family homes for younger families and increase mobility across price points.”
The new housing development, named Heritage Park, will include 28 townhomes for sale, 93 rentals, 87 assisted living units along with some commercial space.
Twenty-four of the apartments will be designated affordable, reserved for families earning 80% of the Area Median Income (AMI). For a family with two incomes, that amounts to about $76,000 annually, according to Department of Housing (DOH) data.
Once the project is complete, West Hartford will be above the state mandate requiring 10% of housing stock to be affordable, Cantor said.
“This is really a testament to the town's commitment,” Cantor said. “We've increased over 2.5% the affordable percentage in our town, and I think that is unique in the state of Connecticut.”
Remediation should take between six and nine months, with construction to begin after, Cantor said.
“The windows of the old UConn campus had PCBs that helped reinforce the windows. The PCBs, over a period of time leak. They leak in the soil. There's wetlands nearby. Gets into the wetlands,” Gov. Ned Lamont said.
The former UConn campus is one of 16 remediation projects funded in the latest round of Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development’s (DECD) Brownfield Remediation and Development Program.
More than $28 million were put toward the projects, which will bring more than 200 acres across 13 towns back into productive use. It’ll also result in the construction of about 835 housing units, including 157 affordable.
“By cleaning up blighted and vacant properties, we can put this land back into productive use in smart ways that support the growth of businesses and new jobs, and also to build new housing, which is significantly needed,” Lamont said.
