By Cliff Foster

A committee that includes representatives from the three MSU Denver schools held its second meeting last week as it considers requests from various departments and offices for additional room—a process tied to the ongoing space swaps among the three institutions that share the Auraria Campus.

The swaps, which began last year, stem from the neighborhood concept in the campus master plan, which divides Auraria into four distinct areas or neighborhoods, one for each school, and an area for shared resources. MSU Denver’s neighborhood includes all of the building sites along Auraria Parkway, which stretches from the new Hotel and Hospitality Learning Center to beyond the Student Success Building, and then down 5th Street to the new athletic fields under development south of the West Colfax Avenue viaduct, adjacent to Shoshone Street, east of I-25.

Many of the swaps so far have been between the University and the Community College of Denver, whose neighborhood borders West Colfax Avenue and includes building sites on 7th Street.

The latest round of proposed swaps would result in a net gain for the University of roughly 500 square feet. Here’s how that would come about:

• Since mid-January, CCD has turned over suites 155, 260 and 410 in the Administration Building to MSU Denver. This was part of an agreement between the two schools in the first round of swaps last year.
• Under that agreement, CCD still owes the University 1,372 square feet. In addition, CCD wants the University to give up 3,197 square feet of computer lab space in the South Classroom building, located in CCD’s neighborhood, at the end of the semester. 
• To pay its debt and compensate for the South Classroom space, CCD would turn over by fall suites 340, 325 and 355 in the Administration Building, resulting in the net gain of 519 square feet for the University.

The displaced computer lab from South Classroom would move into suite 260 in the Administration Building this summer and possibly gain adjacent rooms from the University of Colorado Denver.

The swaps are still under discussion, says Sean Nesbitt, director of facilities planning and space management. The Space Planning Allocation and Resource Committee will weigh the requests against available space and send its recommendations to the MSU Denver administration, he adds.

The University is close to a deal with UCD. Under that agreement, the Access Center would move this summer from the Auraria Library to larger quarters in the Plaza Building once occupied by the Department of Hospitality, Tourism and Events.

UCD would move into the Auraria Library and compensate the University by providing space in the Administration Building for the computer lab, plus additional space in the next two years, Nesbitt says.