This past January, Denver’s department of Community Planning and Development helped convene a community meeting to gather information on what people in the neighborhood wanted in terms of the potential redevelopment of the Loretto Heights campus.
The image at the top of this post shows the answers people gave the city to two key questions: What do you like about the Loretto Heights area?, and What are your hopes for Loretto Heights?
A second meeting is set for 10 a.m. to noon on Saturday, June 1, at Machebeuf Hall on the Loretto Heights campus, where there will be a discussion on potential plan concepts.
In terms of history, Loretto Heights was a high school for women and then a college. The campus stretches back some 130 years, though it was purchased many years ago by the Teikyo University Group, which operated Colorado Heights University.
The school closed in 2017. The 70-plus-acre campus was purchased by Westside Investment Partners, Inc., which is based in Glendale (the purchase price has varied in different publications, but it’s about $16 million or so). An earlier developer, California-based Catullus Development Corp., had pulled out of the purchase.
District 2 City Councilman Kevin Flynn has been involved in the area’s redevelopment plan for quite some time. After all, this is a major opportunity to A.) save important buildings on the campus (some have already been earmarked for preservation), and B.) find a way to gently make changes that please the surrounding neighborhoods, accommodate the developer’s potential intentions, and remember how important this beautiful area can be to everyone in the city.
I am looking forward to this meeting, since so much is at stake.
Below are links to the city’s information on the meeting, to Historic Denver’s updated page on the Loretto Heights campus (with a lot of information), to a story about affordable housing coming to Loretto Heights, and to a couple of stories covering the first community meeting in January.
https://historicdenver.org/loretto-heights-whats-next/
Denver landmark Loretto Heights getting affordable housing via historic dorm renovation
Chandler in Denver 