redevelopment of historic denver campus getting community input

Plans are moving forward for the redevelopment of one of the most stately sites in Denver: the campus of the former Loretto Heights Academy.

Located at 3001 South Federal Boulevard, the 74-acre property has for the most part been abandoned since the end of 2017 when the last school to call the site home, Colorado Heights University, ended operations.

Last summer, Westside Investment Partners of Glendale, Colorado, purchased the property for $15.5 million, announcing at the same time that they wanted to redevelop the site.

Westside has since conducted a number of community input meetings hoping to solicit ideas on how that redevelopment should look.

Originally founded by the Sisters of Loretto, the school and larger campus is dominated by a series of historically significant building, perhaps the most important of which is the six-story main administration building.

That red stone Romanesque structure designed by Colorado architect Frank Edbrooke in 1891 was put on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.

The structure is one of nearly twenty buildings on the campus that are expected to be redeveloped and repurposed.

Westside has committed to keeping intact a cemetery on the north side of the campus where 62 nuns are buried. The company has also said that it will upgrade the Pancratia Hall, a one-time dorm, into affordable housing space.

Hopes are high that the 1,000-seat May Bonfils Stanton Theater on the campus, which was built in 1961, will also be preserved and repurposed.

It has been reported that work may begin on the site sometime early next year once all the plans for the campus redevelopment have been reviewed and agreed to.

By Garry Boulard

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