Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has put its Hartford campus up for sale, CBRE announced Wednesday.
The property, at 275 Windsor St., includes an eight-story classroom building and amphitheater, which previously housed the school’s graduate center for working professionals pursuing advanced education.
The campus is currently closed to students, according to a source familiar with the property. The school plans to look for a new campus location with smaller space that provides both remote and in-person classroom opportunities, the source said.
“With the sale of our building, we look forward to finding a new physical Hartford location that is better aligned to our current needs,” said Aric Krause, dean of academic and administrative affairs at Rensselaer.
The 12.7-acre site also includes a four-story parking garage and surface parking lot, totaling more than 860 spaces.
CBRE said it has been retained as the exclusive adviser in the sale. The property is being marketed as “mixed-use redevelopment opportunity in Hartford’s Downtown North neighborhood,” the company said.
The property is next to Dunkin’ Park, and carries a flexible MX-2 zoning designation with a campus overlay, according to CBRE.
CBRE said that increased demand for multifamily housing in downtown Hartford, along with easy access to highways and the city’s central business district, “perfectly positions the site for redevelopment.”
CBRE has listed the property without a formal asking price.
In a statement, Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin said Rensselaer’s Windsor Street location offers “tremendous potential for the mixed-use development that expands the development already underway around the baseball park. We’re going to be as aggressive as we can in supporting and promoting residential development, and the Rensselaer campus’s size and location makes it a hugely important opportunity. I want to acknowledge Rensselaer’s long-standing presence here in Hartford, and we look forward to working with them and with potential buyers.”
Rensselaer’s Hartford campus offers non-degree certificate programs, which teach specific skills geared toward working professionals and take a fraction of the time to complete compared to a master’s degree.
John McCormick and Anna Kocsondy of CBRE’s Hartford office are in charge of the listing.
