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2015 | Doing Business in Connecticut 25 777 Main Street offers views of the city and the Connecticut River. about 250 faculty members." New York-based A.M. Stern Architects, which is designing the campus, plans to pre- serve "key elements" of the Times building. Segarra said he "lobbied heavily" for his alma mater to come to Hartford. He's also de- lighted that Trinity College is creating a pres- ence downtown, joining Capital Community College and the University of Saint Joseph's School of Pharmacy in the downtown core. "at all adds more foot traffic and cements Hartford's position as a college town." In January, Trinity completed a $2 mil- lion purchase of a five-story building at 200 Constitution Plaza, formerly the Travelers Education Center. It's not yet clear whether the college will use the space for graduate studies, urban and global studies, perfor- mance arts, or some other use. e 135,000-square-foot space, built in 1986, features classrooms, a library, a 200-seat amphitheater, a conference center and office space. It's been empty since Travelers le at the expiry of its lease in 2011. Housing e Trinity project marks another win for the troubled Constitution Plaza, which has had its share of vacancies and stalled projects over the past 10 years. e old Sonesta Hotel on the plaza, vacant for two decades, is finally getting a new lease on life as a 193-unit apart- ment building, expected to open any time. On e Plaza, as the 12-story, $26 million project will be known, will offer great views of downtown Hartford, the Connecticut River and beyond. e first three floors will feature commercial space and common areas for ten- ants, including a fitness center, a library and a 49-seat movie theater. e state provided $6 million in assistance for the conversion. Next door, a Middletown developer has plans to build 48 apartments, offices, and retail space in a $17.7 million, 10-story tower called Residences at River View at 200 State Street, site of the former Broadcast House owned by WFSB prior to its move to Rocky Hill in 2007. is is one of several office-to- housing conversions going on downtown. Another is 777 Main Street, the Bank of America building. is $85 million project — long in the works — will be completed this summer, adding 285 studio, one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments. Fiy-nine apart- ments will have rents targeted to low- and moderate-income tenants who meet income guidelines. e 26-story building offers spec- tacular views of the city and the riverfront, and features a $3 million, 400-kilowatt fuel cell that will provide most of the building's power. Two other smaller scale housing proj- ects were recently completed — 179 Allyn Street with 63 units, and e Grand on Ann at 201 Ann Uccello Street, with 26 units. e $14.89 million project at 179 Allyn converted a historical commercial office building into a mixed-use property with street-level commer- cial space. e $5.3 million Grand project of- fers market rate apartments above the current ground-floor tenant, e Tavern Downtown. Meanwhile, 40 Elm Street — formerly a warehouse for the carriage industry of the early 1900s — is being converted into six residen- tial apartments at a cost of $1,127,650 and is expected to be complete by the fall of 2015. To the south, the Corporation of Indepen- dent Living is working to fill a funding gap on a conversion of the three-story Capewell Horse Nail Company factory to apartments. CIL has secured $26 million in public and private fund- ing to turn the building into 72 apartments and roughly 5,500 square feet of commercial space. Many of these housing projects have been aided by the Capital Region Develop- ment Authority (CRDA), which has set a goal of adding 2,000 new rental units to downtown Hartford by 2018. Michael Freimuth, CRDA's executive director, says the agency wants to capitalize on the "migration back to urban areas" being seen on a national level. is megatrend, he said, "is starting to be felt in the Hartford area," and the city must have ap- propriate housing stock to offer to would-be residents, many of whom are young profes- sionals wanting to live downtown. "With the exception of several high-pro- file, publicly subsidized deals like Hartford 21 and 100 Trumbull, the city's residential base really hasn't had a significant investment in many years," he said. "e housing stock has grown tired. Electrical, appliances, and space configurations have all changed. So the mar- ketplace is going through a process of looking at ways to upgrade the product, trying to meet the new demand." PHOTO/CITY OF HARTFORD PHOTO/CITY OF HARTFORD Downtown North, a $350 million, two-phase neighborhood redevelopment, will include a $56 million minor league baseball stadium and be home to the Yard Goats, formerly known as the New Britain Rock Cats. Continued on page 113 >