For about a decade, City of Boulder officials have been planning to transform a former hospital site — located between Alpine Avenue and Balsam Avenue on the west side of Broadway — into a hub for city services and Boulder’s largest affordable housing development.
On Dec. 17, city officials, councilmembers and others involved in the project scooped up dirt with commemorative shovels at the site of the former Boulder Community Health hospital, which was demolished last year. The ceremonial groundbreaking marked a milestone for a project long in the making.
“The site will prioritize pedestrian experiences, focus on sustainability and on leading by example — walking the talk of our citywide goals,” City Manager Nuria Rivera-Vandermyde said during the ceremony.
Despite the celebratory event, the development is still several years away from completion. For many, it has been in the works for so long that it is easy to lose track of what it entails. Here’s where things stand.
What’s being built
The Alpine-Balsam project has three major components.
First, the city plans to create a centralized hub for government services and offices, consolidating departments currently spread across the city in aging buildings that require costly repairs, according to city officials.
This campus includes renovating and expanding the Pavilion Building, part of the former hospital and a central structure on the site. The building will nearly double in size and be converted to all-electric, with solar panels on the roof. The addition also includes adding a fourth story, according to development review records. The Brenton Building and an adjacent parking garage with 400-plus spaces will also undergo renovations, albeit to a lesser extent.
Second, the city has entered into an agreement with Boulder Housing Partners — the city’s largest provider of affordable housing — to help build 217 housing units. This includes 157 permanently affordable apartments and 60 market-rate units, as well as new commercial space. Designing the homes is Coburn Development, a local architecture firm.
Laura Sheinbaum, chief real estate officer for Boulder Housing Partners, said most of the affordable units will be rentals, including some that will be age-restricted for older adults. Proposed market-rate townhomes near North Boulder Park are expected to be for sale, she said.
Another major part of the project is flood mitigation, as much of the site sits in a 100-year floodplain. Initially, city officials considered using nearby North Boulder Park for flood detention, but community feedback led to a revised plan. The new design includes a continuous green space stretching from North Boulder Park to Broadway. This channel will help manage flood risk and serve as a recreational amenity.
What will it look like?
According to the Alpine-Balsam Area Plan, adopted by the Boulder City Council in 2017, the site will be “a vibrant multi-generational hub for community life and local government services” and “a welcoming and inclusive new model for equitable, affordable and sustainable living.” In October, the council approved a form-based code to guide the project’s design, setting parameters for building size, aesthetics and massing.
Sadie Cline, an architect with ZGF Architects, a Denver-based firm contracted by the city, said the Pavilion Building expansion will use mass timber and local stone for a warm appearance. The Brenton Building and parking garage will be renovated to match the Pavilion’s aesthetic.
The housing units, which range from three to four stories, will include red brick, wood-look siding and black metal awnings, according to architectural plans. Some units will have pitched roofs to reflect the aesthetic of nearby homes in the Newlands neighborhood.
The overall design includes open spaces with courtyards and a paseo running through the center of the site. Public art is planned to be placed throughout the site.
How much will it cost?
The City of Boulder purchased the 8.8-acre site in 2015 for about $40 million. An additional $16 million was spent to demolish the old Boulder Community Health hospital through a “sustainable deconstruction” process. City officials said this included repurposing steel beams and using the hospital’s crushed bricks and concrete for structural fill.
City officials estimate the redevelopment will require another $40 million in capital investment and $100 million in debt issuance.
The new government offices are intended to save the city money over the long term. However, the project nears construction at a time when city officials estimate the city has about $380 million in unfunded capital needs, such as the South Boulder Recreation Center. Moreover, the city is in the process of considering a major development in the Area III-Planning Reserve, with infrastructure cost estimates of up to $1 billion.
The exact cost of the housing component, including the level of city subsidies for the affordable units, remains unclear. Boulder Housing Partners officials said they are still working out the financials. Kurt Firnhaber, the city’s director of Human Services, said it’s too early to determine the total city investment, but the current estimate is between $17 million and $20 million.
When will it be completed?
Cline, of ZGF, said further demolition of parts of the former hospital is scheduled to begin in 2025, with construction on the Western City Campus expected to wrap up by spring 2027.
The housing component will likely take longer. Sheinbaum, of Boulder Housing Partners, said groundbreaking for the affordable and market-rate housing will not occur until after certain flood mitigation work is complete. Construction on the housing is expected to begin by late 2026.
Bought the site for $40m. $16m in demolition cost. $140 additional to construct. How is this affordable housing. I must be missing something.
This is a good affordable project in that most of the housing will be affordable, it is actually a walkable neighborhood and less is market rate. But don’t let city council and planning board members gaslight you into believing that further development in North Boulder Area III or the airport will be walkable, they are far to remote and every one of the residents of those 3000 units will be driving to school, work and groceries.
Agreed. The new city buildings (which I assume are accessed daily by drivers, in and out & utilized only during business hours) should be in the Area III project, not in the center of a neighborhood. More housing and commercial businesses to serve these folks makes more sense than office space which will be empty for weekends, holidays, etc.
Good point – last I heard was that 50% or more of City employees live out of town, so unless they have convenient bus routes to take them down Broadway to this new “city center” (unlikely) they will be driving. Council continues to be delusional about people’s ability to take alternate modes when they have time constraints, kids to deal with, errands to run, etc. In addition, there are employees like building inspectors who will be driving in and out of this facility every weekday. All of this will only add to traffic congestion during rush hours. However, the surrounding businesses that serve coffee and lunch breaks will probably be happy.
For a city that constantly pushes sustainability, the carbon footprint of tearing down and disposing THEN rebuilding this facility is enormous. Better they should have designed around the existing structures. Same is true of the Macy’s destruction and rebuild on 29th St. Mall. Don’t preach what you can’t practice.
You made a crucial point, and to address your concerns regarding the new city building, the team has worked tirelessly to do just as you suggested. The building design will remove the existing skin of the pavilion building due to its poor energy performance and the need to expand the building; however, the existing structure is being re-used, and new structural elements are, for the most part, to be constructed of mass timber rather than carbon-intensive concrete. Overall, the project targets a 73% embodied carbon reduction over new construction and an 81% operational carbon savings.
Maybe these carbon reduction and savings numbers apply to the pavilion, but you’ve lost the embodied energy of the original hospital, which has been completely demolished. This would include the carbon/energy usage for materials production and transport and the energy used for the original construction. There will be more energy involved in constructing all of the replacement buildings (housing, offices) that will only be partially offset by the reuse of existing materials that you mention. Obviously there will also be energy/carbon emissions involved in the new buildings associated with fabricating and transporting materials and construction. The energy efficiency of the new structures may or may not make up for all of this. Was there an honest lifecycle cost assessment done that included all of the embodied energy of the original hospital and the energy that will be used in constructing the new buildings?
What will rents be on these ‘affordable’ units, I wonder? Will anyone earning less than $100K a year be able to afford them? Whenever I hear language like this: “…the site will be ‘a vibrant multi-generational hub for community life and local government services’ and ‘a welcoming and inclusive new model for equitable, affordable and sustainable living'” (which sounds like it was composed by AI), I want to run for the hills.
SBRC first. Vanity projects later.
My sentiments exactly, Cal Y. Quantification of what Cal asked, City of Boulder?