COMPLETED: 350,000-square-foot expansion of Housatonic Community College

[HartfordTycoon]

Here's an article from the CT Post about the pending expansion at HCC. Soon New Haven and Bridgeport will have state of the art community colleges like Capital in Hartford.

Conn Post Article

[ctman987]

This is great news ...colleges are integral part of every city whether they are community colleges, public universities, private universities, etc.

[HartfordTycoon]

This is great news ...colleges are integral part of every city whether they are community colleges, public universities, private universities, etc.

[doz180]

Here is another article about the expanision of the college in the former Sears building.

For years, the old Sears, Roebuck and Co. building stood abandoned on Lafayette Boulevard near I-95, a highly visible symbol of how department stores fled cities for suburban malls.

But the once-decaying building is now the center of an ambitious expansion by Housatonic Community College, space that will allow the college to double its size and provide another boost for renewal in the heart of Connecticut's most populous city.

"This building can become another beacon within Bridgeport," said Danile DeBoo, project manager and senior associate of Perkins Eastman, the Stamford-based firm providing full design services for the project. "It's a prime location, maybe 150 feet from the highway."

With its 10-year-old downtown campus already busy seven days a week, HCC has already helped to transform downtown Bridgeport. The campus enrolls as many as 4,700 students a year, bringing life to an area where "12 years ago was a part of town you would not want to go," according to Paul McNamara, dean of administration at the college.

The 'port is on the rebound.

Demolition and reconstruction of the former Sears, a deep, box-shaped structure about the length and width of a football field, into a contemporary building has been designed to appeal to a modern "hip culture," according to DeBoo.

The design includes an "academic arc" to project outward to the east and west, and uses mainly glass and metal for the southern exposure, facing Long Island Sound. The combination of brick, metal and glass will agree with the "more conservative" design of the main campus building, DeBoo added. Three new additions are "sprinkled" into the design to help provide shape and form, along with an intimate, landscaped courtyard, DeBoo said.

www.courant.com/business/hc-housatonic0213.artfeb13,0,6246790.story?coll=hc-headlines-business

[HartfordTycoon]

Housatonic Community College

New England Real Estate Journal