Officers of the Colorado History Museum have signed a preliminary agreement to build a new museum just a block away, in a vacant parking lot on 12th Avenue between Broadway and Lincoln Street.
The museum will occupy a portion of the lot just south of the blue glass ING office building at 13th Avenue, which is now referred to as the 1290 Broadway building.
The new museum building, which will be roughly four stories or 50 feet tall, will have a 60,000-square-foot footprint, or about two-thirds of the parking lot. An office building will extend above a portion of the museum, consisting of roughly 200,000 square feet of offices that will be be leased out.
Between the new history museum building and 1290 Broadway will be a five-story parking garage. The parking slots will be used during the day by the office tenants and will become available to museum visitors and staff during evenings and weekends.
The total cost of the history museum should come in at less than $110 million, which falls near the recommendations of the legislature’s Joint Budget Committee.
The museum-relocation project, which is being launched to make room for the state judicial department’s expansion, still needs to be approved and funded by the legislature. All of the parties involved said they hoped to have the approval during this year’s legislative session.
If approved, construction could begin as early as spring 2009.
Mike McPhee: 303-954-1409 or mmcphee@denverpost.com
