Ancora Partners’ approved lab building is part of the initial phase of the Square 10 project at the former New Haven Coliseum property. Image courtesy of Pelli Clarke & Partners and Jacobs

What was supposed to be New Haven’s next big life science real estate development and a major landmark at a gateway to the city is suddenly going nowhere, fast.

According to the New Haven Independent, Mayor Justin Elicker told reporters that because Yale University is pulling back from an incomplete deal that would have made it the anchor tenant in Ancora Partners’ 277,435-square-foot, 11-story tower on Spinnaker Real Estate Partners’ “Square 10” development next to the city’s Knights of Columbus tower.

Spinnaker sold the site and permitted plans to a joint venture of Ancora and British pension manager Legal & General in 2023. The $230 million project was originally slated to break ground last year.

The Independent reports that while a lease hadn’t been finalized, Yale had been in negotiations with the development team. Now, thanks to President Donald Trump’s gutting of biotech research funding, the university confirmed to the online news site that it’s axing plans to lease space in the tower.

Yale, either on its own or as the incubator for companies created by its professors, has been the main driver of New Haven’s 1 million-square-foot-plus biotech real estate sector in the last 10 years.

While the tower doesn’t appear to be likely to break ground any time soon, Spinnaker’s first part of its larger Square 10 development has already been completed: a large apartment building.