🔒University of St. Joseph eyes new welcome center, library reno in $10M-$13M investment

The University of St. Joseph plans to file an application seeking to build a new welcome center and renovate the library on its West Hartford campus. The town’s Design Review Advisory Committee will conduct a “study session” for the application during its meeting Thursday. The application would seek a special use permit for the project. University President Rhona Free said the project will completely renovate the interior of the Pope Pius XII Library at 1678 Asylum Ave., while adding a “really bright and welcoming face” for the school. “Students use library facilities in ways that are very different now than 20, 30 or 50 years ago,” Free said in an interview with Hartford Business Journal on Thursday. “They don’t use it for books as much as collaborate with each other. So, the library is being renovated to correct that.” Most of the building is “filled with stacks of books” that will be removed, she said, to make way for constructing collaborative workspaces for the school’s 2,000 students. “The entire interior is being opened up,” Free said. “Students are using electronic resources more, so the space will be designed to reflect that.” Along with the interior renovation, the project proposes constructing an 1,100-square-foot addition to the south side of the library, which faces Asylum Avenue. According to a presentation and set of plans submitted by the university to the committee, the new welcome center will provide a more modern entrance to the library, enclosed in glass and with updated landscaping and new exterior lights. The new welcome center will include an outdoor terrace with tables and seating areas. The project will eliminate 52 parking spaces, reducing the number to 204, the plans state. Free said the goal is to “create a welcome center, so that we have a better face to Asylum Avenue.” She added that the school hopes to break ground on the project in January and complete it within a year. She estimated the cost at between $10 million and $13 million. The committee is scheduled to meet Thursday at 4:30 p.m. in Room 400 in West Hartford Town Hall.