Winstanley Enterprises' 500,000-square-foot New Haven lab tower at 101 College St. Image courtesy of Elkus Manfredi Architects

One of the biggest developments planned for New Haven in years is set to break ground this summer.

Winstanley Enterprises told city officials that the company’s 10-story, 500,000-square-foot biotech lab tower will break ground in June, the New Haven Independent reports. Financing for the project has been secured, Carter Winstanley told officials, but did not name the source.

The project will be built on the site of a highway extension that the city has slowly been reverting back to surface streets.

The project won city approvals last year for the speculative project, which is hoped will substantially increase the ability for local biotechs to remain in the city instead of decamping for Branford, New York City or Boston. Winstanley said that local demand for lab space is so strong, there is less than 5,000 square feet available in the city.

The city’s growing bioscience scene, which is fueled by research at Yale University, is leading to a range of speculative construction and office-to-lab conversions in the city and in nearby Branford, whose industrial buildings have heretofore provided some of the needed life science space.