An urban wildlife refuge and outdoor classroom in Denver’s Central Park neighborhood will get a big facelift over the next few months.
The Bluff Lake Nature Center broke ground on Tuesday on a major improvement project for the 123-acre property once classified as a “crash zone” at Denver’s former Stapleton Airport.
Today, the property welcomes the public to walk a mile-long path around Bluff Lake, which sits alongside Sand Creek and offers an oasis for native plants and wildlife.
It’s owned and managed by the Bluff Lake Nature Center, a nonprofit organization that uses the site as a field trip destination and an outdoor classroom for home school and summer camp programs.
Coming soon: Indoor and outdoor learning spaces
The current site, however, lacks utility hookups and has little infrastructure beyond a pavilion and a staff building.
The $8.5 million improvement project will turn a bluff above the lake into a small campus outfitted with an indoor classroom, outdoor learning spaces and an administrative building for the nonprofit.
“For me, it's going to make a big difference,” said Mark McMullen Bushman, the school programs manager at the Bluff Lake Nature Center. “If I want to print something, I got to drive three miles to the office. If it's here, then I'll just be able to print it.”
The nonprofit has received gifts from private donors, foundations and the City and County of Denver to fund the project. It’s raised more than $7 million so far, said Leila Regan-Porter, the development director for the Bluff Lake Nature Center.
Shape Architecture and Superbloom Landscape Architecture collaborated on the design, which knits future classroom spaces together with native plant gardens and a new pathway offering wheel-chair access to the lake below.
“What’s cool about the design is how the building and the landscape work together,” said Diane Lipovsky, a landscape architect and co-founder of Superbloom. “It’ll really be a much more comfortable space for people to experience this incredible place in Denver right outside their front door.
The arrival of Stapleton Airport turned Bluff Lake into an accidental wildlife refuge.
After Denver’s Aviation Department purchased the property in the 1940s, it was enclosed with barbed wire and left largely undisturbed until the airport closed in 1995.
The lack of development attracted a wide variety of wildlife, including foxes, snakes, turtles, coyotes, owls and deer, according to the nonprofit.
The city designated the area for conservation in a legal settlement with the Sierra Club. After the airport closed, the environmental group sued the City and County of Denver for operating inadequate retention ponds for plane de-icing chemicals.
Overflows during large rain events often killed fish in Sand Creek. To settle the lawsuit, Denver agreed to preserve the Bluff Lake area and invest $3 million for wildlife habitat improvements and a trail system. The city transferred the property to the Bluff Lake Nature Center in 2000.
What's next?
Construction is expected to last until the fall.
While the center plans to close the parking lot at the site, it has already opened a new pedestrian entrance northwest of the lake and plans to open a secondary access point along Martin Luther King Boulevard.
