About 100 people filled the auditorium of the Colorado History Museum this morning to discuss where the new museum should relocate.
Brad Cameron, the most vocal opponent and leader of the ad hoc Coalition to Save Civic Center, told the audience the Colorado Historical Society was gently forced into building a new museum on the grassy open space in the Civic Center. Cameron said that documents he obtained through an open-records request show the city didn’t want to sell its permit center at West 14th Avenue and Bannock Street, nor did the state want to sell its parking lot at Colfax and Lincoln Street.
“From our perspective, the Civic Center isn’t the best site but is the only site available,” said Cameron, suggesting that public discussions should be held to choose the best site, then try to acquire it.
Cameron’s group clearly favors the vacant permit center.
“Are we saving the (Civic Center) park or an office building?” he asked rhetorically.
Bill Mosher, the project manager hired by the Colorado Historical Society, said later that Cameron wasn’t exactly accurate because the legislature last January rejected his request for $130 million and suggested an amount closer to $80 million. Mosher said the permit center has an additional cost of $12 to $15 million to buy the land, a cost that could be avoided by using the Civic Center. He said no one really wants to locate the museum at Colfax and Lincoln.
Former city councilwoman Cathy Donohue opposed the Civic Center site because of the loss of open park space in the center of the city. She said the city shouldn’t waste the 30-year bond money it is requesting in the November election to renovate the vacant permit center, which she says is full of mold.
“City Hall…will be mostly vacant when the courts move to the new justice center,” she said. “The city doesn’t need the permit center.”
But others, including Ed Robran, president of one of two Golden Triangle neighborhood associations, and Elaine Asarch, founder of the Civic Center Conservancy, supported the Civic Center site as a way of attracting cultural events and visitors to the area currently populated mostly by drug dealers and homeless people outside of festival time.
The next public meeting will be at 8 a.m., Monday, in the City Council committee room on the third floor of City Hall, hosted by Council woman Jeanne Robb, whose district includes Civic Center.
Staff writer Mike McPhee can be reached at mmcphee@denverpost.com or by calling (303) 954-1409.
