MSU Denver broke ground on a 200,000-square-foot residence hall on Wednesday. (Matt Geiger/BusinessDen)
Metropolitan State University of Denver is going vertical.
The commuter school broke ground on its first dorm Wednesday afternoon. Dubbed “Summit House,” the 12-story, 155-unit project on a 2-acre lot along Auraria Parkway is expected to open in time for the fall semester of 2027 and will be the tallest building on campus.
“We put the school here because the students were here, and now the students have been priced out of the very neighborhood where the school is. So this is a really important reason to have the housing come onto campus,” MSU Denver President Janine Davidson said at a groundbreaking ceremony.
The $117 million building will also include 22,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space on the ground floor and a 25,000-square-foot student-serving “classroom-to-career hub” above it.
A rendering of the residence hall. (Courtesy Columbia Ventures)
Construction of the residence hall and retail portion will be financed by MSU Denver-issued debt, serviced entirely by revenue from the building to avoid any change in tuition, the school has previously said. The second-floor hub is funded with $6 million in state money and $9.6 million in donations.
“We surveyed our students, and thousands of them said that they travel more than 40 minutes to get here,” Davidson said. “And I spoke with some students this weekend who live in Colorado Springs, and if there was an on-campus option, they would be taking it. So, I have a lot of faith that we have no trouble whatsoever filling these 550 beds.”
The project sits on MSU Denver’s former ballfield at the corner of 11th Street and Auraria Parkway. It’s part of the larger Auraria Campus, also home to the Community College of Denver and University of Colorado Denver, which has its own housing. The site of the groundbreaking has sat unused since the school’s baseball team moved to a new facility in 2015.
But Summit House isn’t the only building envisioned for the lot. Auraria Campus CEO Colleen Walker told BusinessDen that plans are in the works for a second 12-story building next door.
Walker hopes to break ground “in the next six months,” she said. The building will hold a little over 300 units of income-restricted housing along with a daycare inside. Georgia-based Columbia Ventures is the developer of both Summit House and the planned project next door.
“You’re gonna see a vibrancy that this side of downtown hasn’t seen before,” Walker said.
MSU Denver broke ground on a 200,000-square-foot residence hall on Wednesday. (Matt Geiger/BusinessDen)
Metropolitan State University of Denver is going vertical.
The commuter school broke ground on its first dorm Wednesday afternoon. Dubbed “Summit House,” the 12-story, 155-unit project on a 2-acre lot along Auraria Parkway is expected to open in time for the fall semester of 2027 and will be the tallest building on campus.
“We put the school here because the students were here, and now the students have been priced out of the very neighborhood where the school is. So this is a really important reason to have the housing come onto campus,” MSU Denver President Janine Davidson said at a groundbreaking ceremony.
The $117 million building will also include 22,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space on the ground floor and a 25,000-square-foot student-serving “classroom-to-career hub” above it.
A rendering of the residence hall. (Courtesy Columbia Ventures)
Construction of the residence hall and retail portion will be financed by MSU Denver-issued debt, serviced entirely by revenue from the building to avoid any change in tuition, the school has previously said. The second-floor hub is funded with $6 million in state money and $9.6 million in donations.
“We surveyed our students, and thousands of them said that they travel more than 40 minutes to get here,” Davidson said. “And I spoke with some students this weekend who live in Colorado Springs, and if there was an on-campus option, they would be taking it. So, I have a lot of faith that we have no trouble whatsoever filling these 550 beds.”
The project sits on MSU Denver’s former ballfield at the corner of 11th Street and Auraria Parkway. It’s part of the larger Auraria Campus, also home to the Community College of Denver and University of Colorado Denver, which has its own housing. The site of the groundbreaking has sat unused since the school’s baseball team moved to a new facility in 2015.
But Summit House isn’t the only building envisioned for the lot. Auraria Campus CEO Colleen Walker told BusinessDen that plans are in the works for a second 12-story building next door.
Walker hopes to break ground “in the next six months,” she said. The building will hold a little over 300 units of income-restricted housing along with a daycare inside. Georgia-based Columbia Ventures is the developer of both Summit House and the planned project next door.
“You’re gonna see a vibrancy that this side of downtown hasn’t seen before,” Walker said.
