Downtown Denver’s steadily growing Auraria Campus is about to get another new building: the Metropolitan State University of Denver’s Aerospace and Engineering Sciences Building.
Slated for the southeast corner of Auraria Parkway and 7th Street, the new $70 million academic facility will feature 142,000 square feet in four floors. Here’s a Google Earth image with the site outlined in yellow:
Metro State’s new Aerospace and Engineering Sciences Building is critical to help Colorado remain a national leader in the aerospace sector. According to the Metro Denver EDC, Colorado ranks third in the country behind California and Florida in the space economy, and metro Denver ranks first in the nation in total private-sector aerospace employment. The new Aerospace and Engineering Sciences Building consolidates the university’s aviation and aerospace-related programs into a state-of-the-art facility for training workers skilled in advanced aerospace design, manufacturing, and assembly. Here are some images of the project, courtesy of Anderson Mason Dale Architects:
North elevation along Auraria Parkway, with the recently completed MSU Student Success Center‘s cantilevered wing visible to the left:
West elevation with Auraria Parkway on the left and 7th Street in the foreground:
South elevation looking northeast:
South and east elevations looking northwest:
Construction should begin later this year, with completion set for 2017.
Another very urban building for the campus, and the Apollo capsule is definitely going to be eye-catching for drivers incoming on Auraria Parkway.
Sharp looking building ! Off topic a bit but are there still plans to remodel the UCD building at 15th and Larimer. I assume that plan has either been cancelled or put on a very long hold.
Actually, the project has risen to the top of the list since the new CU Denver Academic Building is finished and it should be the next CU Denver building funded.
The Auraria campus has added several new buildings and renovated several others as it gets more dense. What’s next for the campus? Any other planned projects in the pipeline?
AHEC’s Tivolli Park project and CU Denver’s Student Wellness Center both just passed the student vote and (and the Regent vote for the Wellness Center). Both look interesting.
Lots of changes over the last 5=7 years at Auraria.
cute building. I like the stacks, nice effect. a little more color though, maybe some LED lighting at night would make it really pop. I love buildings that really glow.
I’m going to venture that since the building will house the a number of fabrication facilities with welding, 3D printing, milling, cutting facilities, and coating facilities (paints, epoxy’s, etc) that the stacks are more functional than decorative.
It seems that the architect took a lot of cues from the newly completed CU Academic Building- of which they were also the architect- almost too the point that it’s a near carbon copy.
Paul, I think you’re right. It looks very similar to that recent build at Auraria. Some people would consider that a negative. But in an academic context, I’m okay with it. I think there’s something appealing about a cohesive design language at a college campus. I think it has worked well for CU and DU over the years. I’d just like to see Auraria take this (or any approach) and formulate a master plan that they can build upon each year.
My two cents.
I think this is great! The more university that downtown Denver gets, the better: vibrancy, youth, professionals, jobs, everything.
I thought that one of the selling points of Auraria Campus was that the building could be shared. It appears to me that now the three schools want buildings for their sole use
I also noticed that the campus has crossed Colfax to the south for their sports fields. An improvement over what was there, but are they lusting for the residential land directly across Colfax from the main campus?
Absolutely, Auraria won’t stop until it’s consumed the entire neighborhood to the south. 😉
I do realize that there is a historical concern from the La Alma-Lincoln Park neighborhood that the campus may come south, but that’s not going to happen- if it does- for decades. The campus will infill on the sea of parking lots first which will take decades. While the MSU Denver Athletic Fields did expand the campus, it was kind of a one-time deal that took stranded land created from the relocation of the Barnum lead and re-purposed it for a useful purpose. I’d love to see the fields integrated with the neighborhood by redoing 13th Ave to be more pedestrian friendly so that the fields become an asset to the neighborhood more so than they are now.
There’s also EGTC building that isn’t an extension of the campus, but is still an encroachment by educational institutions into the neighborhood.
The most recent version of the Auraria Campus Master Plan does call for more building that are solely used by a particular college/university. However, there are still many building are shared and will be going forward. According to that Master Plan, there are no designs on the property fronting the south side of Colfax, but the Auraria Connections plan that was developed by the Auraria Campus and the city and county of Denver shows a desire to improve the connections (pedestrian, bike, etc.) across Colfax, Speer and Auraria Parkway. Some relatively larger mixed-use buildings on the south side of Colfax would frame the street quite nicely.