Storrs Center Ready For Next Phase

STORRS Buoyed by their successes so far, the developers of the Storrs Center at the University of Connecticut will begin construction this summer on the next major phase of the $120 million project, adding 200 apartments, a daycare center and more storefront space.

And marketing will begin this spring on the last phase of townhomes and condominiums, with construction possible next year.

"We're running to the finish now," Howard Kaufman, managing member of the Tuxedo Park, N.Y.-based LeylandAlliance, the project's master developer, said Monday. "We're going to finish this."

Similar plans dating to as early as the 1950s and '60s collapsed in the face of recession, lack of financing or construction restraints.

All of the 300 apartments built so far in the first phase are leased, said Jeffrey Resetco, vice president of construction and development at Education Realty Trust Inc. of Memphis, Tenn., which is heading up construction of the rentals.

The first phase will wrap up this summer, with the addition of an additional 92 apartments. Those units are already 98 percent pre-leased, Resetco said.

All the commercial space in the first phase is now leased and has drawn high-profile tenants such as UConn women's basketball coach Geno Auriemma, who opened a restaurant there. Commercial space has been leased to more than two dozen stores and professional offices, plus attractions such as the Ballard Institute & Museum of Puppetry, scheduled to open Saturday.

The Mansfield town council Monday night was expected to get an update on the progress of Storrs Center.

Storrs Center is being privately developed in conjunction with the Mansfield Downtown Partnership, a coalition of town, university, business and community members that formed more than a decade ago to guide the project through the planning and permitting process.

The next phase was once named Village Street but has been rechristened "Wilbur Cross Way," a nod to the former Connecticut governor. Wilbur Cross Way now incorporates a building that LeylandAlliance had once hoped would become a hotel. Those plans were rejected by the town last year.

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Storrs Center Ready For Next Phase