Metropolitan State University of Denver is taking a step away from its commuter-campus reputation by building its first-ever student housing complex.
The university plans to build the Summit House, a 12-story student residence hall, and open it by 2027, it announced Thursday. It will be built at 12th Street and Auraria Parkway.
Construction will cost $117 million and will begin this summer. Money to build the dorm comes mostly from debt the university took out, as well as “$9 million in private donations and an anticipated $6.6 million investment,” according to a press release. MSU Denver officials said the project will not raise tuition or fees.
Renderings for the project show ground-floor retail with school facilities on the second story and housing on the upper 10 floors. 550 students are projected to live in the Summit House.
The Summit House won’t be the only major construction project happening on the Auraria Campus.
The Auraria Campus, which manages the land where MSU Denver, University of Colorado Denver and Community College of Denver students attend classes, plans to build another tower next to MSU Denver’s dormitory.
The adjacent tower will house the campus’s Early Learning Center, a daycare center. Additionally, the campus will build 330 units of affordable housing for “faculty and staff and community members,” bringing non-student residents back to the campus for the first time in decades.
