Issue link: https://nebusinessmedia.uberflip.com/i/1213068
www.HartfordBusiness.com • February 24, 2020 • Hartford Business Journal 11 Quality Construction Builds Repeat Customers www.borghesibuilding.com © 2011 BlueScope Buildings North America, Inc. All rights reserved. Butler Manufacturing™ is a division of BlueScope Buildings North America, Inc. 2155 East Main Street • Torrington, Connecticut 06790 Mozzicato Retail, Rocky Hill, CT | 2014 | Renovation — 6,000 sq. ft. Contact us at 860-482-7613 or visit us on the web. Mozzicato Bakery/Retail, Plainville, CT 2010 | 4,700 sq. ft. Farmington Bank, Plainville, CT 2010 | 2,700 sq. ft. FOCUS: COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENT whether you can expand that menu to attract investment." Success stories Other municipalities have had better success redeveloping vacated properties. For example, Sacred Heart Uni- versity in recent years has steadily grown its presence at General Elec- tric's former corporate headquarters in Fairfield that housed two, three- story buildings. The private college recently unveiled plans to construct a new $60-million, 4,000-seat hockey and skating arena on part of the former GE campus. Meantime, Aetna's $170-million cam- pus in Middletown was heralded as a crown jewel of economic development when the health insurer debuted the 1.3 million-square-foot campus in 1983. But faced with the prospect of mak- ing major investments to upgrade the facility, home to nearly 5,000 employ- ees at its peak, Aetna decided in 2010 to move its Middletown operations to Hartford and raze the main building there for another user. It found a taker within six years: FedEx Ground, which finished build- ing a 600,000-square-foot distribu- tion facility on-site in 2018. The FedEx redevelopment may offer a roadmap for landlords and towns looking to reinvent dormant suburban office parks. The broker for the property, Cush- man & Wakefield, had identified FedEx as a possible tenant through a national marketing campaign, and arranged a campus and city tour in winter 2015, according to city officials. The city and Middlesex Chamber of Commerce then connected FedEx with Middlesex Community College and other local higher-education institutions to discuss developing a talent pipeline to fill some 1,000 jobs that would be created. The city also outlined its zoning ap- proval process for FedEx, prepared a local economic report, and forged new relationships between the company and state Department of Economic and Community Development (DECD), among other recruitment tactics. That eventually led to DECD granting a five-year tax abatement for FedEx's property improvements. Tom Marano, the city's economic development specialist, said local of- ficials simplified FedEx's expansion, which is why he believes the compa- ny selected Middletown over several other states in consideration. "Through the whole process we made it easier for them," Marano said. "We showed them their time from ap- plication to approval would be quicker here than every other community." Vacated suburban office parks Here is a breakdown of suburban corporate campuses that have been vacated in recent years and what's become of their properties since. Vacated suburban office park Size Reuse Aetna (2010): Middletown 1.3M sq.ft. FedEx Ground distribution hub The Hartford (2014): Simsbury 641,000 sq.ft. Multifamily/vacant General Electric (2016): Fairfield 800,000 sq. ft. Sacred Heart University classrooms, athletic facilities Bristol-Myers Squibb (2018): Wallingford 915,000 sq. ft. Vacant MassMutual (2021): Enfield 430,000 sq. ft. For sale Chemtura Corp.: Middlebury 313,000 sq. ft. For sale Source: HBJ research. Informatics Consultant / Lead w/ Aetna in Hartford, CT. Dev & deliver decision support tools, reporting apps, insights & business intelligence based on adv. analyses & studies to support health care policy, benefits & operational decision making by Aetna internal & external constituents. Rqmts: Master's deg in Statistics, Comp Sci or Mgmt Info Systems. Min 2 yrs of software eng & analysis exp. Must have exp creating test scripts; automation scripts; UAT scenarios; & mgmt reporting; exp w/ end- to-end delivery of the business reqs & completeness of the solution; recommending, consulting, & creating analytic solutions; programming in data warehouse or big data analytics environments; stat analysis techniques & stat modeling; & analytic programming tools & reporting tools incl SAS; SQL; & MS Office. Must also have exp w/ Unix/Linux systems; & w/ programing in Shell. Apply at www.aetna.com Req #66786BR. AA/EOE M/F/D/V. We conduct pre-employment drug & background screening