IN PROGRESS: Goodwin College Riverfront Campus

[HartfordTycoon]

East Hartford Gazzette

With the move to the new riverfront campus officially starting this week, Goodwin College is on a "new trajectory" says Joy Castello Butler, Assistant Dean/Student Services for the school.

"I see the creation of the extended areas as new learning spaces for us to be challenged [by] and to embrace," she said on Monday, from her new office at the gleaming building.

"We will now have the opportunity to provide a multiplicity of programs and services for our students, to make learning exciting. Also recreational opportunities. We can now develop the arts - theater and dancing, for instance - areas that our students were not able to express themselves in before. And they will not have to compete for a small space, but they will have an area in which they will feel comfortable to express their views."

If Castello Butler sounds too optimistic, even a quick stroll around the new facility shows that she is probably erring on the side of caution. The new reality students will face, when they return from their winter break on Monday, is so much better than what they are now familiar with, that for many this will be virtually a new Goodwin.

First, there is the physical space of the $25 million main administration and classroom building, the first of several buildings planned on the former brownfields site of an oil tank farm. The building has the futuristic look of industry, and toys with the notion with an aviation-inspired Art Deco signage and skin that seems riveted like the wing of an airplane built at nearby Pratt & Whitney Aircraft. Then there is the tower, resembling more of a lighthouse than anything else. At dusk, its top shines with a color-changing LED light show, a beacon sure to make many drivers going through East Hartford along Route 2 wonder 'what on earth is THAT building over there?'

By day, though, the new Goodwin College building is all sharp lines and clear focus. No doubt inspired by the majestic sweep of the Connecticut River rolling by just below its windows, the facility seems to invite the aspect of all that is outdoors - from the big city Hartford skyline to industrial areas and nature - inside.

In fact, in tandem with its architectural counterpoint across the river, the Connecticut Science Center, the clean, modernist Goodwin campus defines what today's thought is on the perfect educational environment for sophisticated academic uses.

Goodwin student Crystal Ann Haynes reads a book in the new library of Goodwin College. The Connecticut River is in the background.

[HartfordTycoon]

Hartford Business Journal

Goodwin Replaces Eyesores On River

College aims to meet demands of Connecticut

[HartfordTycoon]

Hartford Courant

Courant.com

CONNECTICUT PROPERTY LINE

Goodwin College's New Campus Offers Classes With A View

By TERESA M. PELHAM

Special To The Courant

January 6, 2009

A walk-through of the new Goodwin College campus, led by President Mark Scheinberg, is a little like a tour of Willy Wonka's chocolate factory and a lot like a bachelor showing off his first apartment.

"Here's our very tricked-out computer room," Scheinberg said as he pointed out one of many sleek, high-tech rooms in the first major building of the gleaming new East Hartford campus.

Perched on the banks of the Connecticut River, the 110,000-square-foot building boasts some of the latest technology for education. But, really, it's all about the view.

Starting with orientation this week and classes on Monday, Goodwin students will not only enjoy ergonomic desks with footrests and lounge chairs with laptop trays, they'll also be able to watch airplanes land at Brainard Airport, just across the river, with the Hartford skyline in the distance.

"This is such a dramatic location, with dramatic views of the river," he said while tiptoeing over wires and paint cans a week before the school's official opening. "It's hard to be objective. It's just so amazing."

Although it's rare to see such grand construction, given today's anemic economy and credit crunch, Scheinberg's plans began years ago. A $20 million mortgage was secured a year and a half ago.

"We never would have pulled this off in today's economy," he said, noting that the loan was the college's first ever.

The six-floor building is the first phase of a $90 million campus development project that will eventually include the Connecticut River Academy Environmental High School, which is set to be completed in 2011.

[JimSawhill]

Not sure why, talk to MDC they own most of the land along the riverfront.... Where there any before 91 was built??

[mikel]

When Goodwin College was in the center of East Hartford, it was reachable by plenty of CT Transit bus lines. Now it is reachable by none. I think Goodwin College's new campus plan seems like it's straight from the 1960's. I don't think I'd want to attend a college that's so behind the times.

[The Voice of Reason]

I have no doubt that once it is open the town of East Hartford will connect regional bus lines to the campus much the same way they do with manchester community college.

running a bus there now makes no sense