🔒Trinity College gets OK to bond $42M for renovations, refund other bonds

Trinity College in Hartford is set to fund renovations to its campus, including additions and upgrades to its athletic facilities, after the Connecticut Health and Educational Facilities Authority (CHEFA) unanimously approved up to $42 million bonding for the school on Wednesday. CHEFA — a quasi-public state agency that issues tax-exempt bonds on behalf of colleges, hospitals and other nonprofit institutions — approved the request during its board meeting Wednesday afternoon. Trinity College is a private, nonprofit school that had approximately 2,100 full-time equivalent students enrolled for the 2025-26 school year. The school said it intends to do a public offering of the Series T bonds “for the purposes of funding on-campus renovations,” as well as refunding two outstanding bond issues. Bond proceeds, according to the school, will be used to finance approximately $10 million of campus capital improvement projects, including:

• Utility renovations and improvements;
• Additions and upgrades to athletic facilities;
• Renovations and improvements to student housing;
• Renovations and improvements to academic facilities;
• Renovations and improvements to other campus facilities; and/or
• Equipment and furnishings for any of the foregoing projects.

Trinity said it hired Barclays to underwrite the transaction. As of Feb. 11, Moody’s affirmed Trinity College’s A2 issuer rating with a stable outlook. The proposed refunded bonds include Series L (2008) and Series Q (2017), which has a balloon maturity on April 1, 2026. The issue will include tax-exempt and taxable bonds, it said. The sale of the Series T bonds must be completed by no later than June 30, 2026. Trinity conducted a fundraising “All In Campaign” from 2017-2025, telling the CHEFA board that the campaign raised $438 million, exceeding the adjusted goal of $425 million. “Some notable accomplishments of the campaign include enhancements to athletic facilities, including a new state-of-the-art fitness and squash facility, newly established Entrepreneurship Center and funding for their internship program with emphasis on underwriting full need for students pursuing nonprofit opportunities,” according to documents included with the bonding resolution. The college said its endowment has reached $912 million as of fiscal year 2025, up 15% since fiscal year 2021. Excluding the proposed issues to be refunded, Trinity said it has three additional outstanding issues totaling $101 million:

• Series N (2014) - $2.1 million remaining
• Series R (2020) - $49 million remaining
• Series S (2021) - $50 million remaining.