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They’re Outta Here
With your help, $1.67B CuraGen to buy 88-acre Branford site
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Business New Haven
5/14/2001
By: BNH
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New Haven's guessing game is over: Genomics prodigy CuraGen Corp. is moving to Branford. And the state may use public dollars to help them get there.
CuraGen announced May 1 that it planned on closing on the 88-acre Bittersweet Farms site on East Main Street within 18 months. Currently the company's 350 workers are split between Route 1 in Branford and three floors of the Long Wharf Maritime Center, which houses CuraGen's executive offices.
Owned by investor Marc Nevas, the Bittersweet Farms site currently houses Branford Craft Village, which is home to some two dozen arts and crafts stores. According to published reports, many or all of the individual stores' leases are due to expire this summer.
City of New Haven economic-development officials had hoped to retain the genomic wunderkind, at least in part. Among the sites CuraGen is said to have been shown is the former Pirelli building on Sargent Drive, until recently the epicenter for another failed city initiative, the proposed Long Wharf retail mall.
Moreover, despite a market capitalization of some $1.67 billion, CuraGen is thought to be seeking as much as $10 million in state loans to help fund the move.
Presumably, some of that money would come from the state's $40 million Bioscience Facilities Fund, which is administered by the quasi-public Connecticut Innovations Inc. (CII). That fund has a $5 million cap on loans to individual projects. However, additional public assistance might be made available through two other state agencies with which CII works closely: the state's Department of Economic & Community Development and the Connecticut Development Authority.
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