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Allyn Street Property Proposed For UConn Relocation

by KENNETH R. GOSSELIN

May 06, 2013

A two-acre parking lot on the north side of Allyn Street — the proposed location for a 42-story office tower in the 1980s — is another of the 13 proposed sites for relocating UConn’s Greater Hartford campus to downtown Hartford.

Tishman Realty & Construction Corp. of New York City told me this morning the property is among the proposals contending for selection by UConn.

“We can satisfy their proposed program on the site,” Obaid Khan, Tishman chief financial officer, told me. “There is more than adequate room to build.”

Khan said Tishman had not proposed any specific building or parking configuration for the property, in the city’s nightclub district. The property carries the legal address of 108-154 Allyn St., but Khan referred to it as 180 Allyn.

It wasn’t immediately known if UConn has sought more information on Tishman’s proposal.

UConn has said it has sought more information for a “handful” of the most promising proposals, but it has declined to identify any of the proposed sites or those it is considering. Two weeks ago, UConn said it has not definitively ruled out any proposed locations.

Read more here about some of the proposed sites.

UConn declined to comment today and did not have an update on its site selection, which the university hopes to wrap up by early summer. UConn sought the proposals in late January after first studying the former Travelers Education Center on Constitution Plaza.

Last week, Hartford Mayor Pedro E. Segarra and another city official told The Courant that two sites — One Talcott Plaza, just north of the former G. Fox building and the old Hartford Times building at Front Street — were leading contenders. Segarra also mentioned the former bank processing center on Windsor Street, immediately north of downtown.

Thomas E. Deller, the city’s chief development, indicated there also was the possibility of a fourth site, which Deller hadn’t determined.

The Allyn Street property is bounded by Allyn, Church and High streets and now contains nearly 300 parking spaces. It has long been known as the Oakleaf site after a developer that went bankrupt after trying to develop an office tower.

In the 1990s, the property also was considered as a potential location for the Connecticut Convention Center, later built at Adriaen’s Landing. Just west of the Hartford Civic Center — now renamed the XL Center — also made it a possible site for a second sports arena.

The property was cleared of a car dealership, a gas station and other buildings when the skyscraper was envisioned. The parking lot replaced a dirt lot when the tower wasn’t built.