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March 3, 2022

Wesleyan to spend up to a year determining use for $3.1M office building purchase

Photo | CoStar 55 High St. in Middletown.
By Michael Puffer

Wesleyan University doesn’t yet have a specific plan for a roughly 44,000-square-foot office building at the corner of its Middletown campus it recently purchased for $3.1 million.

Wesleyan spokesman Steve Scarpa said the university will spend the next six to 12 months determining the best use for the building, which was purchased on Feb. 18 to provide options.

“The property was attractive because of its flexibility,” Scarpa wrote in an email response to questions. “We thought that purchasing the property was a prudent path to take in order to give us options moving forward.”

The two-story building at 55 High St. had most recently served as corporate offices for Liberty Bank. The two-story building was originally constructed in 1961 by the university to house the operations of its Weekly Reader publication.

It went on the market about two months ago, according to Luke Massirio, an O,R&L broker who represented Liberty Bank in the deal.

The building comes on a 2.6-acre lot, according to city assessing records.

Wesleyan had owned the building through 1988, according to a statement from Andrew Y. Tanaka, Wesleyan University’s senior vice president, chief administrative officer and treasurer.

The High Street offices were largely vacated as Liberty moved hundreds of employees into a newly renovated, 90,000-square-foot corporate headquarters, at 245 Long Hill Road in Middletown. Liberty celebrated the completion of that building project in 2018.

Tanaka’s statement praised the bank for its “careful stewardship” of the property.

“Wesleyan University is pleased to work with our colleagues at Liberty Bank on this purchase,” Tanaka said. “Fifty-five High Street is having a homecoming of sorts.”

Liberty Bank President and CEO David W. Glidden released a statement touting a nearly 200-year-old and strong partnership between his bank and the university.

“This is why we were pleased to find the most appropriate Middletown-based buyer and good neighbor in Wesleyan University who will have the best interests in mind when it comes to the future use of our former High Street office building,” Glidden said. 


 

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