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February 19, 2021

Elm City research company eyes Windsor site

HBJ PHOTO | MATT PILON 2195 Day Hill Road, which is being considered for a new R&D facility, is currently farmland bordered by Route 187 and across from The Hartford’s Windsor campus.
By Matt Pilon

One of the larger undeveloped parcels in Windsor’s Great Pond business park may soon be transformed into a major biotech research and development hub, the Hartford Business Journal has learned.

A recently-formed New Haven early-stage biology research company called New England Cell Therapeutics wants to spend about $36 million to construct and outfit a 50,000-square-foot facility at 2195 Day Hill Road, which is currently farmland bordered by Route 187 and across from property-and-casualty insurer The Hartford’s Windsor campus.

Formed in 2019, New England Cell Therapeutics is owned by Japan-based Nipro Group, which makes pharmaceutical packaging and other products, and counts U.S. locations in New Jersey, Indiana and Virginia.

NECT President David Kolstad, a medical device executive who led the $90 million sale of Massachusetts-based LightLab Imaging in 2010, declined comment for this story.

The company did not yet have a website as of press time. But its development application to Windsor’s Economic Development Commission last month sheds some light on its real estate hunt and aspirations.

If NECT is successful in winning a four-year tax abatement deal from the town of Windsor, which will review the matter this month, it intends to start construction at the site this year. Between now and 2025, NECT says it would hire 45 full-time employees at the site, with combined payroll exceeding $5 million by the fifth year of operations.

NECT said it investigated 20 properties in its search for a hub location.

If built, the new facility would be right up the road from Amazon’s massive warehouse facility, which was constructed several years ago and is in the midst of a recently begun expansion.

“It does show that this area is kind of a prime spot,” said James Burke, Windsor’s economic development director.

Burke said that NECT officials, in discussions with the town, noted the nearby Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks, as well as the presence of UConn and Yale, as pluses.

NECT’s presence would build on other nearby medical and pharmaceutical players in town, including Scapa, SCA Pharmaceutical and Protedyne.

“It helps us diversify from our base in financial technology, and more recently, distribution and specialized medical manufacturing,” Burke said.

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