March 21, 2008 6:07 PM

Plug pulled on science building at Auraria

The state abruptly pulled $37.5 million in financing earmarked for the science building under construction on the Auraria campus, causing business and education leaders to fear that the $120 million facility will not be built, and the campus will be scarred by a giant hole in the ground.
Construction began in December on the five-story, 181,000-square-foot Auraria Campus Science Building that will cost $111 million to construct, and $9 million for furniture and equipment, about 200 feet from Speer, along the Arapahoe Street axis. It is being described as the first major building constructed on the campus in more than 20 years.
The financing was pulled by the state on Thursday, because of new, lower-budget estimates.
“I’m well aware of the situation,” said Bruce Benson, president of the University of Colorado on Friday afternoon.
“It is really critical that we get the financing re-instated and that this building is completed,” Benson said. “Right now, it is just a hole in the ground.”
Benson said the current science building is so unsafe that pregnant women are advised not to take classes there because of fumes from science experiments.
“This is like looking at the Justice Center, and saying, “Let’s stop construction and just leave a giant hole in the ground,” said Stephen Jordan, president of Metro State College, one of the three schools at Auraria.
“It is very disappointing,” Jordan said. “This building is absolutely key to our ability to support where our economy is going to get the science-based manpower that we need. Also, this has the highest number of people of color of any campus in the state who are in math, science and engineering programs.”
If the building is not completed, “it will constrain the number of students we can accept,” Jordan said. “We are absolutely out of space now.”
Tami Door, president and CEO of the Downtown Denver Partnership, said the downtown business community is a strong opponent of pulling the funding.
“It is a business issue as much as it is a higher-education issue,” Door said. “The other big problem is that if the money is cut, we are left with a big hole in the ground. We were so thrilled that the University of Colorado Denver at Auraria is finally getting its own building, and now this happens. This is very symbolic. It was a major investment and now the financing promised is 100 percent gone.”
The money is unlikely to be reinstated, said State Rep. Bernie Buescher, D-Grand Junction, who chairs the Appropriations and Joint Budget Commitees.
“What we ahve clearly seen that we are not immune to the forces in the national economy,” Buescher said. “And in all likelihood, things are going to get worse, before they get better. At the end of day, everyone wants money from the state. Can we spend money that we don’t have? Absolutely not.”
He said that he would love to see the science building constructed. But he said it’s not prudent to fund multi-year projects such as this one, when there may not be funding available to complete it.
“People may be upset, but our job is to make tough decisions,” Buescher said. “I remembe under Gov. Romer, during good times, every quarter we would get a surprise that things were $100 million better than expected. Now, the same dynamic is working in the reverse.”
Maria Garcia Berry, principal of CRL Associates and vice chair of the Metropolitan State College Board, said not only is this the first new ground-up building on the campus since the mid-1980s, but it also would be the biggest.
She said Auraria received the first appropriation of $25 million from the state last year, and this year asked for $50 million. Instead, the state promised $37.5 million, with the difference to be raised by Auraria and CU, she said.
But she said new revenue presented to the state on Thursday, resulted in $46 million being allocated for all state capital improvement projects by the Joint Budget Committee this year, instead of the planned $118 million.
“So what they did, is they zeroed us out,” Berry said. “We’ll probably run through the $25 million already allocated by the end of July. We’ve joked internally maybe we could turn the big hole into a giant swimming pool.”
The building not only is important to the campus and business community, but also is considered the first step in helping to link Auraria better with downtown.
“The eastern side becomes the first Auraria campus structure to establish a Speer Boulevard street wall--a key component of the Downtown Area Plan’s goal to connect Auraria with the core Downtown,” urban planner Ken Schroeppel wrote on his Denverinfill.com blog.
The architect of the planned LEED-certified building is Anderson Mason Dale. Below are photos and drawings.

Speer rendering

South rendering

Northwest rendering

Posted by John Rebchook at 6:07 PM | Comments (0)