UConn’s Board of Trustees recently approved an option agreement to sell 105 acres in the southwest portion of the school’s Mansfield Depot Campus to a private company — Promesa Capital LLC — headed by Cortese, who would lead a group of investors in developing the site as the region’s first-ever connected and autonomous vehicle test track and research facility. Under the option agreement — if all steps and zoning approvals are met — UConn would sell the Mansfield property to Promesa Capital LLC for $5 million. Promesa Capital would use its own money from investors to fund construction of the estimated $30 million test track facility, named Spectrum Park. UConn — and other entities — would use the property for different purposes. Cortese said the testing facility’s business model is to have a consortium of large companies that want to invest in the project and have a presence in the facility. Potential clients would be charged a user fee, which is how the facility would earn revenue.

Meet the duo behind an ambitious $30M plan to build the region’s first autonomous vehicle test track facility, research center