A commercial bioscience park, part of the $4.3 billion redevelopment of the former Fitzsimons Army Medical Center, will emerge this year from the shadow of its rapidly growing neighbor, the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center.
Final plans for at least a dozen laboratory and research buildings at the 160-acre park will be completed early this year, paving the way for construction to begin, said Jill Sikora Farnham, executive director of the Fitzsimons Redevelopment Authority. The buildings are designed to attract major biotechnology, pharmaceutical and medical-device companies to Fitzsimons.
The first buildings could open as soon as 2007 and the bioscience park will continue to expand over the next 10 years, Farnham said.
The pace of construction will depend on demand, she added.
The city of Aurora and the University of Colorado oversee redevelopment at Fitz simons, where CU is building a new hospital and medical schools. Children’s Hospital and the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Medical Center also have plans to relocate to the site.
In November, Fitzsimons selected Cleveland-based Forest City Enterprises Inc. to develop the bioscience park.
Forest City has extensive experience creating biotech business parks affiliated with academic medical centers. The company has developed projects for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
Economic developers are banking on Forest City’s ability to draw bioscience companies to Fitzsimons, Farnham said.
Currently, the bioscience park operates one building with 19 tenants. In May, a second, 25,000-square-foot building will open.
Englewood-based DMI Biosciences Inc., a drug discovery company targeting inflammatory diseases such as multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease and asthma, will occupy more than half the building.
The development’s timing couldn’t be better, said Denise Brown, executive director of the Colorado Bioscience Association.
Vacant research and development space along the Front Range is now filling up as companies expand. Maturing biotech and medical device firms will look to Fitzsimons as they continue to grow, Brown said.
Staff writer Marsha Austin can be reached at 303-475-2796 or maustin@denverpost.com.
