A few days ago we learned that the Colorado Historical Society board voted against locating the new Colorado History Museum inside Denver’s Civic Center Park. In case you missed the announcement, here’s an article by the Rocky’s Mary Voelz Chandler about the issue: No Museum for Civic Center.
The idea to relocate the museum inside the park had been floating around since last spring, and debate on the issue appeared to crescendo around the holidays. For as many people excited by the idea of locating the museum inside the park itself, there seemed to be just as many people opposed to the idea for a variety of reasons. Personally, I had mixed feelings about the proposal. Initially, I preferred the Permit Center site at the southwest corner of Bannock and 14th, but over time I gradually warmed to the idea of placing it inside the park itself, and said so in November. Now that the Civic Center Park idea is dead, the question remains: where should the museum relocate to?
One thing about this issue that I do not have mixed feelings about: the Colorado History Museum must stay in Downtown Denver. I’m troubled by what I read near the end of the article: “After the vote, board member Frank Kugeler suggested that the committee studying sites for the historical society ‘expand the area of investigation’ to include locations such as Union Station, the Gates redevelopment and Stapleton.” Bad idea, Frank.
Downtown Denver is where the Colorado History Museum belongs. A Downtown Denver setting exposes the museum to the greatest concentration of people found anywhere in the state on any given day. It provides the museum a setting among the greatest concentration of historic buildings and resources found anywhere in the state. It allows patrons to access the museum via the widest-ranging transportation options available anywhere in the state. A Downtown location puts the museum within proximity of the greatest concentration of synergetic governmental, educational, cultural, and entertainment facilities found anywhere in the state. It’s a no-brainer: the Colorado History Museum should stay in Downtown Denver.
But where in Downtown is another matter. A location in the Civic Center area is the most obvious, and all of the sites originally considered were located in the Civic Center/Golden Triangle area. Click here to download (750 kb) a PDF containing selected pages from a larger document the CHM once had on their website about their site selection and evaluation process. Some of those Civic Center/Golden Triangle sites should probably be reconsidered; and, given the ubiquity of surface parking lots in that part of Downtown, I’m sure we could come up with a few more. But perhaps we should consider other locations in Downtown where the CHM could go.
One of the locations suggested by Mr. Kugeler was near Union Station. Anywhere around Union Station in Lower Downtown or the Central Platte Valley would be an attractive option for the museum from a number of perspectives. But given the amount of land the museum needs, I suspect they couldn’t afford it. Land around Union Station is arguably some of the most expensive in the entire city. For a project that needs to maximize its budget, a less costly Downtown site would be advisable.
So, here’s my suggestion: How about on the Auraria campus? More specifically, on the Auraria campus at the corner of Speer and Larimer? As many of you probably know, the State recently completed a major update to the Auraria Campus master plan, and one of the plan’s key features is adding public/private mixed-use urban development in the northwest corner of the campus, between the historic Tivoli and Speer Boulevard and between Auraria Parkway and Larimer Street, as shown in red in this future-buildout illustration from the plan:
There are two main reasons for putting higher density urban development at that corner of the campus. One is to strengthen Auraria’s relationship with the central business district and integrate the campus in with the rest of Downtown. The other is to improve the pedestrian connection between Auraria and Downtown and psychologically shorten the crossing of Speer by placing new buildings on campus right up to the street, reconfiguring and narrowing Speer to create additional development parcels along its edge, and creating visual interest, activity, and destinations along the way. The new Downtown Area Plan also makes these same recommendations. A new Colorado History Museum at Speer and Larimer would advance both plans’ goals as well as the museum’s. Here’s another future-buildout illustration from the new campus master plan that I took the liberty of annotating:
Let’s take a look at some of the advantages of this location:
- The site is highly visible and offers great pedestrian and vehicular access.
- Parking could be accommodated underground or as part of a shared parking facility with adjacent private development. Several campus parking garages and the underutilized Pepsi Center parking lots are close by.
- The Downtown Area Plan calls for a streetcar line along Larimer, so the site has the potential to be right at a future transit stop.
- The educational uses on campus and the cultural/entertainment uses in LoDo and the Central Platte Valley are natural complements to a museum.
- The site is only a block away from a historic landmark (the Tivoli) and a block away from Larimer Square, one of the most historically significant places in Denver and the state.
- The museum would be a visual attractor and destination that stimulates pedestrian activity and interest and becomes the psychological “bridge” for crossing Speer.
- The museum would create tremendous added value to the private mixed-use development planned for the land around it, and vice versa.
All of those are positive advantages for locating the CHM at Speer and Larimer on the Auraria campus. But one of the biggest advantages is… the State already owns the land! And it’s not just the State that owns the land, but specifically the Colorado Department of Higher Education, which oversees the Colorado Historical Society and the Colorado History Museum!
During the debate over the various Civic Center sites, it was noted that land acquisition costs could be as high as $10 – $15 million, which made the site inside Civic Center Park so attractive. With the State not having to pay a dime for the Auraria site, the money saved can be put into making the new museum bigger and better.
The only downside to the Auraria site is that it is not adjacent to the Capitol and the other State government and cultural resources in the Civic Center area. But since the Colorado Historical Society board is already considering looking beyond Civic Center anyway, then moving the museum down Speer Boulevard a few blocks shouldn’t be a big deal. Auraria is still a lot closer to Civic Center than Stapleton!
Rather than relying on the Colorado History Museum to help activate and revitalize Civic Center Park, instead, let’s use the museum to help solve the Auraria / Downtown connection problem, while still providing the museum a fantastic location in the middle of everything–with no land acquisition costs!
What do you think?
