UConn - Hartford

The Hartford campus of the University of Connecticut, (UConn) left the city in 1970 after it was first opened in 1939. When the school announced plans to move the Greater Hartford campus back to the city from West Hartford, H.B. Nitkin (Nitkin) submitted a proposal for the old Hartford Times building, the cornerstone of the Front Street District, to be the new campus site. The location was selected out of 13 potential options and UConn is now a prominent edifice of the downtown landscape.

Nitkin created designs that repurpose the 1920’s structure into a 220,000 square foot college campus. A benefit to the relatively small footprint is the opportunity to integrate neighboring entities into the educational experience, accomplishing a university objective of getting students out of the building and onto the downtown streets. What more inspiring place to study art than at the Wadsworth Atheneum, or explore the sciences than at the Connecticut Science Center. Infinity Music Hall and Spotlight Theatre make perfect venues for lectures on the performing arts, and the Hartford Public Library sets a stimulating scene the for classic and contemporary literature reviews.

UConn celebrated its grand opening on Wednesday, August 23, 2017. Approximately 2,200 students and 300 faculty and staff boost foot traffic beyond the 9-to-5 workday hours.