Adams County broke ground Thursday on a government center that will serve as the cornerstone of a 780-acre mixed-use development at Interstate 76 and E-470.
The $85 million government center is one of the largest publicly funded projects to start construction in the state this year. The 329,000- square-foot building will house 500 employees and serve 750 visitors daily. Construction of the building, expected to open in spring 2011, will create about 700 jobs at its peak.
A second 225,000-square-foot building is planned for an estimated 700 employees serving 1,400 visitors daily.
Adams County is “consolidating all of their departments,” said M.R. Hicks, senior associate with Gensler, the architecture firm that designed the building.
“They are scattered all over the place, and this will bring all the employees together in one spot and will be great one-stop shopping for Adams County residents,” Hicks said.
The government center will be the anchor for Adams Crossing, a mixed-use project being developed by WoodHawk Development.
The site has been annexed into the city of Brighton.
“You always have to have a great anchor tenant that creates a major destination and drives daily traffic,” said Kevin Hawkins, managing partner of WoodHawk. “With the county having their administrative headquarters there, we just couldn’t be more thrilled.”
The city of Brighton has approved the overall development plan for Adams Crossing, and WoodHawk is working on building designs and talking to potential users, Hawkins said.
He expects the first commercial buildings to be built and occupied within a year.
At full build-out, Adams Crossing will include up to 2 million square feet of commercial space, 1 million square feet of retail space, 2,500 multi-family homes, 750 single-family homes and 100 acres of open space and trails. The project also will include a hotel.
WoodHawk is jointly owned by Centennial-based Hawkins Development and Woodbury Corp. of Salt Lake City, a fourth-generation, family-owned company.
Woodbury has a real-estate portfolio of 9 million square feet, including a hotel division with nine hotels and two under development.
Margaret Jackson: 303-954-1473 or mjackson@denverpost.com
