Arts Center to launch on former UConn campus

TORRINGTON — Officials will hold a news conference on Tuesday to celebrate the launch of the Five Points Arts Center on the former University of Connecticut-Torrington campus.

The agreement for the city and Five Points Gallery to purchase the former college campus, which was closed in April 2016, as part of a public-private partnership was completed June 30, according to city officials.

With the sale, “the grand vision of creating a world class contemporary art center in the hills of Northwest Connecticut is officially underway,” officials said in a release.

City officials and gallery representatives will discuss their plans Tuesday at 10:30 a.m., as a news conference is scheduled to be held on the campus at 855 University Drive.

The UConn Board of Trustees voted in December 2018 to sell the property to Five Points, which planned to create a 220-seat auditorium, a cafe, artists’ residences and outdoor classrooms for children, with unincorporated land to go to the city in some fashion.

UConn sued Attorney General William Tong to prompt a review of the legality of the sale in July 2019.

The property was constrained by the wishes of former Torrington resident Julia Brooker Thompson, who donated $650,000 to the university in her will to create the campus.

Brooker Thompson indicated that the funds be used “for the purchase or construction of a building or buildings in Torrington or in the vicinity of Torrington for use by the Torrington Branch of the University of Connecticut.” according to court records.

The funds were ultimately used to construct a building containing classrooms on the campus, which opened to students in 1965 and operated for more than 50 years.

Assistant Attorney General Ralph Urban, representing the university, argued the decision to close the campus meant that it was now “impossible, impracticable or illegal” to comply with Brooker Thompson’s request.

Under state law, a charitable donation “shall forever remain to the uses and purposes to which (it) has been granted according to the the intent and meaning of the grantor and to no other use,” unless it becomes “impossible, impracticable or illegal” to use it in the way the donor wished it to be.

In those cases, Urban said the “equitable doctrine of approximation (also known as cy-pres),” which requires an “alternate charitable use that as nearly as possible approximates” the original intent, is applied.

UConn planned to use the proceeds of the sale, expected at the time to bring in $375,000, to create a scholarship fund for Torrington students. It argued that this scholarship fund complies with the equitable doctrine of approximation, and thus state law.

The case was completed in October 2019, according to state records.