Home at Last

Colorado History Museum finally finds a site near Civic Center for its new building

By Linda Hardesty

Timing is everything.

Since 2006 the Colorado Historical Society had been searching for a new location for the Colorado History Museum. Numerous potential sites were investigated. Most recently, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper supported a plan to relocate the museum to Civic Center Park, but opponents said park space should remain open. After an increasingly contentious debate, in January the historical society gave up on the Civic Center plan.

Just when it seemed the society would have to start its search from scratch, one of its first choices became available. In mid-February it announced that the state had entered into a memorandum of understanding with Principal Real Estate Investors of Des Moines, Iowa, to relocate the Colorado History Museum only one block south of its current location.

The museum will move from 1300 Broadway to the parking lot just south of the blue-glassed high-rise at 1290 Broadway. The society estimates the new museum will cost $110 million.

An Obvious Choice

The Denver office of Trammel Crow Co., a real estate investment firm, is program manager for the new history museum. Bill Mosher, area director with Trammel Crow, says that after the Civic Center debacle, he again called the owners of the parking lot behind the ING Building.

“This was an obvious choice from our original analysis of eight different sites,” Mosher says. “It was actually labeled ‘site number one.’ But it wasn’t available the first time we looked at it. Frankly, the delay from the whole Civic Center discussion ended up working in our favor. When I re-approached Principal in January, they were amenable.”

The massing plan for the 93,000-sq-ft parking lot calls for the history museum to have a 60,000-sq-ft footprint. A 450-space parking garage with a footprint of 33,000 sq ft will be built between the museum and the ING Building.

Principal Real Estate Investors has reserved the right to build a commercial office building on top of the northeast corner of the museum.

“They get air rights above the museum,” Mosher says.

The new building will allow the museum to expand from its current 140,000 sq ft to 200,000 sq ft.

Colorado Historical Society President Ed Nichols says he is looking forward to the additional space.

“We have a large collection of Colorado artifacts, and the current space doesn’t allow us to exhibit as much as we would like,” he adds.

Although the new building has not yet been designed, Nichols envisions more room for traveling exhibits, educational spaces and public meeting areas.

In the existing museum, a large portion of the exhibition space is underground. Nichols says most of the space at the new museum will be at grade level or above. Each floor will have unusually tall ceilings to accommodate large-scale exhibits, such as a tepee or a log cabin display.

Need to Move

The existing museum building houses the Colorado Historical Society’s headquarters, the Stephen H. Hart Library and the Office of Archaeology and Historic Preservation. The new building will have enough extra space to house the State Historical Fund, which issues grants from gaming money.

The new museum also will fall under the requirements of Senate Bill 51, which passed in 2007 and requires that all new state buildings be LEED certified. The history museum was asked to find a new location because its neighbor, the Colorado judicial department, wants to build a new headquarters on the entire block of 1300 Broadway.

In 2005 the Urban Land Institute conducted a study to determine if the judicial department could save a significant amount of money if it consolidated its various offices at one location. The study concluded that the department should consolidate and that the best location was next to the Capitol.

Two 1970s-era buildings currently sit on the 1300 Broadway block. The Colorado Supreme Court and Appellate Court reside in a building nicknamed “the toaster,” and the Colorado History Museum occupies a building dubbed “the typewriter” for their odd shapes.

Judicial plans to demolish both buildings and replace them with a new 600,000-sq-ft structure.

Nichols says that in the search for a new location for the history museum, “We wanted to stay in the Golden Triangle area. It’s the museum district, and it’s the area where we are known.”

Political Issues

For those reasons, Civic Center Park looked like a promising location. But opponents, including some city council members, said a new building should not block the sightline between the Capitol and the City and County Building.

In an effort to appease opponents, the historical society and Hickenlooper suggested compromises. They proposed using the existing McNichols building on the northwest corner of the park and connecting it to an underground exhibition space.

But the scheme was rife with problems. Rather than consolidating historical society offices, the plan would have required various departments to be dispersed. The plan didn’t provide any room for future museum expansion. Also, there were concerns about who was responsible for the cost of the project the city or the state.

The breaking point came when opponents organized the Coalition to Save Civic Center.

In a statement from the mayor’s office, Hickenlooper says, “We fully support the Colorado Historical Society in its selection of a new site for the Colorado History Museum. We are glad they found a space that meets their programming needs yet is still close to Civic Center.”

Now that a location has been selected, the society is moving quickly to get funding approval from the State Legislature. Nichols says the money will come from certificates of participation.

“It’s the state equivalent of bonds,” he adds. “The process will include gaining sponsors, introducing legislation and getting approval for the COPs from the House and Senate.”

As soon as the Legislature gives the go-ahead for the COPs, Tryba Architects of Denver will begin the design process. Tryba was chosen to be the architect for the new museum in a competition conducted in 2000.

Joseph Bell, facilities director with the historical society, says the design process will probably take about 12 months, after which a general contractor will be selected.

Originally, the historical society was given two years to relocate, but that deadline has already passed.

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