Yale Leases Half Of Alexion Tower

Yale is moving into a half-empty glass tower downtown that used to be the headquarters of a pharmaceutical company that left New Haven after receiving tens of millions of dollars in state aid.

According to the city’s tax assessor, Yale’s new lease shouldn’t affect the building’s tax status.

On Thursday morning, Yale University Provost Ben Polak announced that Yale has entered into a lease at 100 College St., the former headquarters of Alexion Pharmaceuticals. Yale will lease approximately half of the building from landlords Winstanley Enterprises, LLC and Ventas, Inc.

“Among the potential uses of the newly leased space is support of initiatives recommended by the University Science Strategy Committee (USSC),” Yale Director of External Communications Karen Peart wrote in a press release, ​“which was charged by President Peter Salovey and the provost to develop a strategic plan for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) that could be implemented in the coming decade.”

Click here to read the full press release.

In September 2017, Alexion jumped ship from the 14-story building and moved its headquarters to Boston after settling in just 18 months beforehand. It has kept some operations here in half the building.

The move rankled people here, because former Gov. Dannel Malloy had originally delivered a $51 million package of state aid designed to keep Alexion in state by moving to 100 College. When Alexion announced that it would be leaving in 2017, the state Department of Economic and Community Development (DECD) ordered Alexion to pay back a $20 million loan and a $6 million grant ​“with interest and penalties.”

“Yale will lease space in the building that is also occupied by Alexion Pharmaceuticals,” Peart wrote on Thursday. ​“Alexion will continue to lease approximately half of the building, including occupying all of its existing laboratory space, with about 450 employees. Invicro, a software imaging company involved in translational drug discovery and development, currently occupies one floor in the building. While advancing the university’s academic mission, Yale’s lease also ensures that a significant downtown building remains fully occupied. The 100 College St. facility strengthens New Haven’s position in the bio-science industry.”

The building has also been the beneficiary of a hefty city-sanctioned tax assessment deferral since 2013. Winstanley, through its holding company WE 100 College Street LLC, has had to pay only around $125,000 each year between 2014 and 2018, despite the building’s current property assessment at more than $110 million.

This fiscal year, Winstanley’s company has paid roughly $140,000 in property taxes. City Deputy Economic Development Administrator Steve Fontana told the Independent in an earlier article that the building’s property taxes should phase in at a quicker clip over the next five years. Once the deferral has completely expired a few years from now, the property owners will be on the hook for the full annual property tax bill, which, if calculated at FY18’s mill rate of 42.48, would be close to $4.7 million.

City Acting Assessor Alex Pullen said on Thursday afternoon that Yale’s lease of the property should not render it partially or fully tax exempt. That’s because Yale will not own the building; a for-profit Winstanley partnership does.