🔒Meet the duo behind an ambitious $30M plan to build the region’s first autonomous vehicle test track facility, research center

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Longtime financial adviser Steve Cortese heard back in 2018 that UConn was seeking investors to potentially build an autonomous vehicle testing facility near its Storrs campus, an idea that piqued his interest.

So he decided to travel to the university with his daughter who was enrolling that year in the school’s nursing program.

It was during that visit four years ago that Cortese met Eric Jackson, associate research professor in UConn’s engineering school and director of the Connecticut Transportation Safety Research Center. Jackson presented his idea for the potential testing site that could include simulated highway driving environments, intersections, parking lots and ramps — in what would be the first such test track facility in New England.

Today, that vision is much closer to becoming reality.

UConn’s Board of Trustees recently approved an option agreement to sell 105 acres in the southwest portion of the school’s Mansfield Depot Campus to a private company — Promesa Capital LLC — headed by Cortese, who would lead a group of investors in developing the site as the region’s first-ever connected and autonomous vehicle test track and research facility.

Such a facility, Jackson and Cortese said, would be a boon for the university and region, helping make UConn a leader in autonomous vehicle research, technology and safety.

“My goal is to raise the stature of UConn to a school where world-class research takes place on this technology, and students come to UConn specifically to work with leading faculty on projects that will change the way we travel,” Jackson said. “UConn will be transformational in terms of research and will provide a world-class facility to open opportunities we’ve never had before for the future of transportation.”

The players

Under the option agreement — if all steps and zoning approvals are met — UConn would sell the Mansfield property to Promesa Capital LLC for $5 million.

Promesa Capital would use its own money from investors to fund construction of the estimated $30 million test track facility, named Spectrum Park. UConn — and other entities — would use the property for different purposes.

Cortese said he thought the project would be a great investment opportunity for someone with his professional background, which includes more than 25 years as a stockbroker and financial advisor.

Cortese isn’t a household name, and he’s kept a low profile online. He does not have a LinkedIn page and a simple Google search brings little to no information about the 52-year-old Florida native. He said he attended Florida State University in Tallahassee, where he majored in history, but didn’t graduate.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission lists several companies he’s been associated with including as an investment advisory representative with Dynamic Wealth Advisors. The SEC website also lists his employment with Stamford-based Hedgeye Risk Management LLC, which provides investment research and is an online financial media company, according to its website.

He was also a business development consultant for a limited liability company called Sungarden Fund Management LLC, which is not registered in Connecticut.

Jackson, a Tolland resident, earned his bachelor’s degree in civil engineering at the University of Kentucky and got his civil engineering Ph.D. at UConn, where he specialized in transportation systems. He leads the Connecticut Transportation Safety Research Center, which works with the state Department of Transportation to develop and maintain a crash data entry, collection, and safety analysis system.

Cortese formed Guilford-based Promesa Capital LLC in 2021. It serves as the financial arm of Spectrum Park, a safety research company. The companies, Cortese said, were formed with the sole purpose of a potential deal for the UConn-owned land, which is located in one of the state’s 72 Opportunity Zones, making investment in the project potentially eligible for capital gains tax benefits, Cortese said.

That’s part of the pitch Cortese is making to investors, who he declined to name. Cortese said he has enough investor money for the land purchase, but will need to raise more to cover the estimated $30 million project cost.

It would take about 18 months to complete build-out of the test track facility, Jackson said.

Under the plan, Cortese’s company would work with the university to maintain and potentially operate the facility.

Business model

Cortese said the testing facility’s business model is to have a consortium of large companies that want to invest in the project and have a presence in the facility.

Potential clients would be charged a user fee, which is how the facility would earn revenue.

Companies that he and UConn are hoping to attract run the gamut from car manufacturers and communications firms to software and energy companies. Cortese and Jackson said about two dozen companies — from Connecticut, throughout the United States and even globally — have already expressed interest in the test track facility. Five companies, which the partners declined to identify, have committed to being part of the project when the test track opens.

Preliminary plans for the site, Jackson said, include a loop stretching about three-quarters of a mile that would allow cars to drive as fast as 65 miles per hour. The vehicles would encircle roadways and replicate city and rural driving conditions, complete with faux buildings, vehicles and people.

The short- and long-term potential for such a test track is endless, Jackson said.

“We will have autonomous and connected vehicles that can avoid crashes and also Smart City technologies and, moving forward, into drones and possibly flying modes of transportation,” Jackson said.

Jackson said he envisions that major car manufacturers would test their vehicles at the facility with the goal of using the latest technology to make those cars safer to drive.

In the short term, Jackson said, they are looking to build smart technology that would allow cars to communicate with each other and/or traffic signals to avoid crashes. He said technology for driverless cars is still decades away, before potential widespread adoption.

The facility – which is expected to be manned by 22 researchers, mostly from UConn, to start – will also provide opportunities for startups, Jackson said.

Examples could include an artificial intelligence company that develops cameras or sensors that help navigate a vehicle or assist the driver; or a company that builds smart traffic signals, he said.

Part of the goal of the test track facility is to save lives, Jackson said. According to the Connecticut Department of Transportation, about 180 people have died in the state from traffic-related deaths this year as of July, a 45% increase from the same time last year.

University of Michigan

There are only a few autonomous-vehicle testing tracks in the country, most at colleges, including Virginia Tech and the University of Michigan, which has the 32-acre MCity site in Ann Arbor.

Cortese said he visited the University of Michigan track several years ago to get a sense of how it operates.

Jim Lollar, MCity test facilities manager, said the University of Michigan facility is a public/private partnership that opened in July 2015, with more than 60 clients.

Today it has about 25 clients — including State Farm Insurance, Verizon and Ford — that use the latest technologies with the goals of making roads safer for motorists.

For example, Lollar said the track has the latest 5G technologies that offer clients faster data communication speeds necessary for autonomous vehicles.

“We provide capabilities that users put in place to test things like lane departure warnings, or technology so a car knows it’s leaving a lane when snow is on the ground,” Lollar said. “We provide an environment here for them to test.”

Cortese said it’s difficult – at this point – to pinpoint exactly how many jobs could be created by his planned facility, but “in terms of the science, this can put Connecticut on the map for artificial intelligence driving and safety research.”

“We expect to garner interest from all corners of the globe,” he said.