“When I was a little boy and I came here, it caught my attention. It was like a big city,” said Mike Valentin, 61, a retired manager at Connecticut Natural Gas who lives across the street from the St. Thomas Aquinas building. He nodded at the old school, whose alumni also include the former N.B.A. star Lamar Odom. “Now this is like a ghost town.”

That was all, of course, before Mr. Manafort became President Trump’s campaign chairman and a target of Robert S. Mueller, the special counsel investigating possible ties between Mr. Trump’s campaign and Russian interference in the 2016 election.

“He’s a beauty, isn’t he?” Mr. Valentin said. He was not being complimentary.

Mr. Manafort grew up in a family whose name dotted the map of this part of central Connecticut. Mr. Manafort’s father was a three-term Republican mayor of New Britain, serving from 1965 to 1971, who later became the chair of the state’s public works commission.

Paul Manafort Drive, which is named after Mr. Manafort’s father, curves through the campus of Central Connecticut State University. Manafort Brothers Inc., the construction company founded by Mr. Manafort’s Italian immigrant grandfather, has built train stations and roadways all over the region. (It is now run by another branch of the family.)

Manafort Brothers is one of the subcontractors currently erecting a building at the university. The site stands, naturally, on Paul Manafort Drive.

“I recognized the name on the side of the building before I recognized it from Trump’s inner circle,” said Josh Ehrenfeld, 30, who works next door to the company’s headquarters.