Auraria is growing a bit taller today.
The campus broke ground on an $80 million residential tower Thursday morning at 10th and Walnut streets. The 7-story building will hold 176 income-restricted apartments with an early learning center on the ground floor.
“Denver has become the most expensive city in between the two coasts, and housing is a critical component to an urban campus’s success, and within that, affordable housing is the most important,” said Auraria CEO Colleen Walker.
The apartments will be restricted to those making between 60% and 100% of the area median income, with the average unit clocking in at 89% AMI. Itap the first apartment building on campus that will be open to the public.
“We know that students, faculty and staff have a desire to live … in the city, and this is especially important for young families, young professionals that aren’t at that earning potential quite yet,” Walker said. “This fills that missing middle that has been missing in the greater Denver metro area for quite a long time.”
The current early learning center at Ninth and Colfax will be relocated with 30% more space in the new building, allowing it to take in more children off the waitlist. The additional room will also allow for drop-in daycare services, convenient to the parent visiting campus for class or coursework. Other new features, like two-way windows, will help students who use the space for their education studies.
“The playgrounds now are right up against our brick wall, and the light rail is on the opposite side of that,” Walker said. “So the kids love it, but I will say it was a little busier than I would prefer.”
It will be renamed the Merage Early Learning Center, thanks to a donation from the David and Laura Merage Foundation. Columbia Ventures is the developer.
The 150-acre Auraria campus on the edge of downtown Denver is home to three schools — the University of Colorado Denver, Metropolitan State University of Denver and the Community College of Denver — with 42,000 students combined.
Last year, MSU Denver broke ground on a residential tower of its own next door. That 12-story building includes 550 beds for students, ground-floor retail and a 25,000-square-foot student-serving “classroom-to-career hub.” It will be the tallest building on campus once completed next summer. The site where both of the towers are being built is on MSU Denver’s old baseball field.
And just last month, the campus broke ground on a new police station. Walker said $420 million of development is happening on campus. That includes a new MSU Denver health tower, which will help the school take in more nursing students. It currently rejects 45% to 55% of qualified applicants, according to the projectap website.
“We are really looking at creating a complete community,” Walker said.
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