User:Djflem/Anschutz Medical Campus buildings

Aurora, Colorado counts among the 60 largest cities in the United States, with a population greater than such cities as Pittsburgh, Buffalo or Salt Lake City, but lacks a skyline typical of cities its size. This is due to Aurora’s largely suburban character and relatively small central business district. Indeed, “Original Aurora”, the city’s traditional downtown, has only one building of notable height. During Aurora’s most intense period of growth in the 1970s and 1980s, the area in the geographic center of the city near the I-225 freeway and Aurora Mall (now Aurora Town Center) was envisioned as “Aurora City Center”, a new downtown complete with a collection of tall office buildings. However, these plans have yet to materialize and a large tract of undeveloped land still lies east of Aurora Town Center. As is typical of suburban development patterns of the postwar era, Aurora’s tallest buildings are located along the I-225 corridor, largely either in the vicinity of the Parker Road interchange in the southwestern portion of the city, or near the Colfax Avenue interchange in the northwestern portion of the city, where a large medical services and research campus has emerged. In recent years, a number of hotel properties have also been built in Aurora along I-70 in the environs of Denver International Airport (DIA).

Parker Road / I-225

The area around Parker Road / I-225 saw the city’s first tall buildings rise during the early 1980s, when it was the nation’s fastest-growing city. These buildings could be considered as the eastern fringe of the Denver Tech Center, a concentration of office buildings and hotels along the I-25 freeway in neighboring Denver and Greenwood Village.

Anschutz Medical Campus

The city’s newest tall buildings rose in the early 2000s near Colfax Avenue / I-225 on the Anschutz Medical Campus, the former site of Fitzsimons Army Medical Center, whose main hospital building (Building 500) was Aurora’s tallest building for decades.

DIA Environs

Denver International Airport is located on land north of Aurora that was annexed to Denver, making much of Aurora more convenient to DIA than the developed portions of Denver. Indeed, all freeway traffic from DIA to central Denver passes through Aurora on I-70, and several hotels have been constructed in this corridor. A further access route to DIA from Aurora is provided by the E-470 beltway, and a proposed resort and conference center in this corridor may one day feature Aurora’s tallest building.

Tallest buildings

Rank	Name	Height feet	Floors	Year	Use	Location
1	Pavilion II		13	1981	Office	Parker Road / I-225
2	Pavilion I		13	1981	Office	Parker Road / I-225
3	Anschutz Inpatient Pavilion		12	2004	Medical	Anschutz Medical Campus
4	Research Complex I		12	2004	Office	Anschutz Medical Campus
5	Marketplace Tower II		12	1980	Office	Parker Road / I-225
6	Marketplace Tower I		12	1979	Office	Parker Road / I-225
7	Red Lion Hotel Denver Southeast		12		Hotel	Parker Road / I-225
8	The Children’s Hospital at Fitzsimons		10	2007	Medical	Anschutz Medical Campus
9	Research Complex II		11	2008	Office	Anschutz Medical Campus
10	Leprino Office Building		10	2007	Office	Anschutz Medical Campus
11	Academic Office West		9	2007	Office	Anschutz Medical Campus
12	Research Complex I North Tower		9	2004	Office	Anschutz Medical Campus
13	Building 500		9	1941	Medical	Anschutz Medical Campus
14	1470 South Havana Street (former Municipal Building)		8		Office	—
15	1450 South Havana Street		8		Office	—
16	Fletcher Gardens		8		Residential	Original Aurora
17	Crowne Plaza Denver International Airport		6		Hotel	DIA Environs
18	Denver Airport Marriott at Gateway Park		6	1998	Hotel	DIA Environs
19	Doubletree Hotel Denver-Southeast		6	1983	Hotel	Parker / I-225
20	Hilton Garden Inn Denver Airport		6		Hotel	DIA Environs
21	Hyatt Place Denver Airport		6		Hotel	DIA Environs
22	Aurora Municipal Center	116	5	2003	Government	Aurora City Center
23	Medical Center of Aurora South		5		Medical	—
24	Aloft Denver International Airport		5		Hotel	DIA Environs

Proposed

Proposed new buildings in Aurora:

Rank	Name	Height feet	Floors	Year	Location
1	Highpointe Conference Resort		13		DIA Environs

External links

• Emporis Aurora

Aurora, Colorado *