Community Within a School: An Redevelopment Opportunity Study
Student Researcher: Carrie Briscoe

Link to Capstone Poster      
Link to Executive Summary 

Saddled with crumbling facilities and escalating operating costs on an already-constrained budget, the client, Space Inc, and the Clear Creek School District seek to understand if a vacant school can regain its position as a community hub that fills the gaps in unmet community needs through an adaptive reuse project. The “Community within a School” concept infers there is an opportunity for the Idaho Springs community as well as the school district to realize broader community goals and objectives within this existing building and site. A primary objective for this project is predicated on creating access to services that contribute to and foster a vibrant and self-sufficient rural community. Through this redevelopment opportunity study, the client can glean best practices for adaptive reuse and see how other communities have reimagined old school buildings; learn the community's top needs; and, receive recommendations for how the building and site can be reprogrammed to start meeting those needs.

Landscape, Architecture, and Parking Templates for Affordable and Accessible Housing
Student Researcher: Caitlin Jacobshagen

Link to Capstone Poster      
Link to Executive Summary 

The City of Pueblo’s Community Commission on Housing and Homelessness (CCHH) has found that it is more difficult for developers to build affordable and accessible housing within the City of Pueblo due to local code requirements that increase development costs. This capstone project focused on reducing development costs in the City of Pueblo in order to encourage the development of affordable and accessible housing by completing three objectives. The first was to explore the feasibility and effectiveness of providing pre-certified or non-certified landscape, architecture, and parking templates to developers to reduce their design and engineering costs. The second was to provide the City of Pueblo with policy recommendations concerning templates, ways to reduce development costs, and ways to encourage affordable and accessible housing development. The third objective was to conceptualize a potential template system by creating sample templates.

Prioritization Model for Projects in Westminster, Colorado
Student Researcher: Allison Diehl

Link to Capstone Poster   
Link to Executive Summary

The purpose of this Capstone project is to create a model for prioritizing transportation projects for the City of Westminster as they prepare for their first Transportation and Mobility Plan. Specifically, the capstone creates a customized version of the ActiveTrans Priority Tool (APT) to fit the vision and goals of the City’s TMP. This tool will guide the prioritization and decision making for the implementation and funding of transportation projects in Westminster.

Denver Nonprofit Displacement Assessment
Student Researcher: Alicia Leitgeb

Link to Capstone Poster    
Link to Executive Summary 

Nonprofit organizations are an essential part of a community’s fabric. They provide key services and often act as a bridge between citizens and public sector agencies. However, much like households, nonprofits can experience displacement as real estate costs rise. In order to gain a better understanding of the current landscape of nonprofit real estate needs and potential displacement pressure in Denver, a survey is conducted biennially. This iteration of the Nonprofit Displacement Survey is open to the entire Denver metropolitan region, as the impacts of gentrification can spill across municipal borders and result in regional displacement pressure. This report serves as Phase I of the assessment and focuses on how to best spatially display the data collected to answer the questions: Where were nonprofits located? Where are they located now? Why have they moved? Where are they going next?

Envisioning the future for the Auraria Campus: A study of physical connections, campus vitality, and how to position Auraria for the rest of the 21st century
Student Researcher: Alex Sterling

Link to Capstone Poster     
Link to Executive Summary 

The Auraria Campus is a tremendous educational asset for Denver, and its downtown location makes it well positioned to benefit from the continued resurgence of downtown and continued interest in further new development. Unfortunately, the campus is also a victim of Denver’s former neglect of downtown and is physically cut-off from surrounding neighborhoods by large arterial roadways, designed with the commuting student in mind, and has become somewhat of an island when compared with the rest of its surroundings.

In response to these conditions, this capstone had three main goals, which were to explore ways to better connect the campus physically with its surroundings, how campus vitality can be improved as a movement away from its established identity as a commuter campus, and what can be done to best position the campus for the 21st century. This capstone will help campus leadership have meaningful discussions regarding the exciting future for Auraria will hopefully be a foundational resource that will be relied upon to improve physical connections, enliven the campus, and ensure its future success in a constantly evolving educational landscape.

Holiday Shopping Center Redevelopment Plan

Link to Capstone Poster    
Link to Executive Summary

The goal of this report is to identify the possibilities that the site presents for community focused infill development, as well as how to implement those ideas. The Holiday Shopping Center redevelopment is an opportunity to include this community in the benefits of growth that has been largely focused on new suburban edge development. The path forward will rely on a collaboration between developer, owner, and the city. Creating not only new housing, but retail on this site, is an investment that can uplift families and the community.