The University of Connecticut’s Waterbury campus is expanding and adding a new building.
According to UConn Today, the building is six stories tall and UConn is leasing about 26,300 square feet.
Waterbury Campus Dean Fumiko Hoeft spoke with The Daily Campus about the expansion.
“The background is that the city had this old building, it’s historically very famous,” Hoeft said. “The prior mayor, Neil O’Leary, […] bought it for UConn and he really saved it, sort of, for UConn, because he thought — its right across the street for UConn and it would make a good expansion plan.”
Hoeft said that the building went through UConn presidents since around when Susan Herbst was UConn’s president. According to UConn Today, the building had been vacant for 15 years.
“When [UConn President Radenka Maric] came on board, she was very interested and she wanted to support Waterbury,” Hoeft said. “So, it moved fairly quickly.”
According to UConn Today, the city of Waterbury received a $10 million grant for redeveloping the building and Green Hub Development planned to contribute $5 million for the project.
Hoeft discussed the planned uses of the building and said that it was for multiple purposes.
“It’s more for STEM and in particular, health sciences,” Hoeft said. “So allied health faculty members, all four of them, they’re going to have their research labs there for tenure track faculty. Nursing has their training facilities because we never had one at Waterbury— we were borrowing from Naugatuck Valley Community College.”
Hoeft said that nursing used the space for their accelerated nursing program and that there was a floor for STEM research.
“Then we have research space for humanities and social sciences,” Hoeft said. “And that was one of the things that the humanities and social sciences faculty members really wanted, because it’s pretty rare that they get more than an office space as faculty members.”
Waterbury Associated Student Government President Bendy Al Zaatini discussed the new building.
“It is right next to our main building, and it is ideally opening next semester,” Al Zaatini said. “It is open for mainly allied health students, but also for research labs.”
Al Zaatini, an allied health major, is applying to the nursing program and said that the Certificate Entry into Nursing program is becoming more competitive with the expansion.
“I think it has already impacted UConn Waterbury,” Al Zaatini said. “I’ve already heard that there are more students applying to the CEIN program compared to last semester. I’ve heard students from different campuses, from different regionals, who are interested in coming to Waterbury for the CEIN program.”