CT suburban university expands housing downtown. ‘We want to be part of the growth.’

St. Joseph’s University is developing housing in downtown Hartford this fall with The Millennium apartments. The apartments are intended to house senior students near downtown businesses and hospitals where they can complete internships.

The expansion, announced Tuesday, will start modestly with 10 apartments for 20 students, but is expected to grow in the future to include graduate students in the university’s pharmacy and physician assistant programs. The graduate programs are year-round study programs.

The university’s downtown expansion comes amid a housing shortage on its West Hartford campus. Undergraduate enrollment is up 6% for the 2024-25 school year.

“It’s convenient for students and it really facilitates their ability to get effective pre-professional experience,” Rhona C. Free, the university’s president, said in an interview. “So it’s great for our students and I think they also enjoy the cultural activities in the city. So for students, it works well for both their academic interests and cultural interests.”

St. Joseph’s first confirmed its interest in developing residential properties in downtown Hartford in March.

The city has long strived to become a stronger student city and adding student housing to the city centre is seen as an important part of that.

In addition to St. Joseph’s, the University of Connecticut plans to open a dormitory for about 200 students downtown in 2026. The $28 million dormitory will be built in the rear annex of 242 Trumbull Street, with an entrance on Pratt Street.

UConn’s student housing will be located primarily at its regional campus on Front Street, which opened in 2017.

Free said St. Joseph’s is committed to enhancing Hartford’s goals as a college town.

“Unfortunately, Hartford has suffered from Covid, and we’re just really committed to helping the city revive and become a vibrant center,” Free said. “We want to be a part of the growth of Hartford that we envision and create Hartford as a college town.”

St. Joseph’s looked at several options for its first downtown location, including the Revel, on Trumbull Street. The Revel apartments are on the upper floors of the former Hilton on Trumbull Street, now the DoubleTree.

But Free said it chose The Millennium, a former hotel-turned-apartment building at 50 Morgan St., because the landlord could set up the rooms like a double dormitory on a campus. The rooms have kitchenettes with desks for two students.

“They set it up exactly the way we wanted it to be, to meet the needs of the students,” Free said.

The apartments would return to downtown Hartford two years after Saint Joseph’s moved its pharmacy school to its main campus. After a decade in an upper floor of the XL Center, the university decided it could better collaborate with its physician assistant program, including at the graduate level, by moving them closer together.

You can contact Kenneth R. Gosselin at [email protected].