A “For Sale” sign has been hung on UConn’s former satellite campus in West Hartford, which was recently eyed for a $400-million development for New York-based fintech Ideanomics.
A property listing shows broker Colliers International is seeking buyers for the roughly 58-acre site where Ideanomics once hoped to create more than 300 jobs at 1700 and 1800 Asylum Ave. There is no asking price for the property, according to John Cafasso, a broker for Colliers International Group in Hartford, who is the principal for the assignment.
Like the once planned Ideanomics development, Cafasso said the property is ideally suited for multifamily, medical office, retail, recreational and open space use for the community.
“I think all of that would be some type of vision for a big developer,” he said. “It’s just a question of how it gets developed over time.”
The Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development had pledged an $10-million forgivable loan for the so-called West Hartford Fintech Village project if Ideanomics, then Seven Stars Cloud, hit certain milestones. But the development was put on ice earlier this year after Ideanomics said it wanted to focus on its core business in the electric vehicle sector.
Ideanomics acquired the former UConn property in late 2018 for $5.2 million.
Colliers’ property listing says the Asylum Avenue site is the largest to come to market in West Hartford in the last two decades. It currently houses four buildings totaling 157,662 square feet that were previously used as academic buildings by UConn.
“The campus is located in the northeast section of West Hartford, the most desirable submarket of Central Connecticut, and has excellent access to West Hartford Center and Downtown Hartford,” the listing says.
Ideanomics first disclosed to investors in March, as it reported a $98.5 million loss for 2019, that it had classified Fintech Village as a non-core asset that it would seek to divest. HBJ was first to report the development.
At the time, the company’s stock was trading near all-time lows, below 40 cents per share, with a market cap of approximately $60 million.
Ideanomics has seen a major rebound since then, with its share price spiking, fueled in part by an announcement of an electric vehicle commercial fleet deal in China and that it had regained compliance with Nasdaq Capital Market listing rules.
