Its Official Demo Permit Applied For Bridge To The Future
Bridge over 9th Avenue, remnant of former CU hospital campus, to be demolished
From Business Den
The five-story building that forms a bridge over 9th Avenue in Denver’s Hale neighborhood is set to be demolished. (Thomas Gounley)
The “research bridge” is coming down after all.
Continuum Partners and CIM Group, which are developing the massive 9th & Colorado project at the site of the University of Colorado’s former Health Sciences Center, have decided not to preserve the five-story structure that crosses 9th Avenue, allowing traffic to pass underneath.
Alana Watkins, a spokeswoman for Continuum, said Monday that demolition of the structure likely will begin sometime in the next couple weeks. The road likely won’t need to be closed until after the start of the new year, she said, although plans still are being finalized.
The developers previously considered converting the structure into a hotel. As of Monday afternoon, a rendering of the renovated bridge was still on the 9th & Colorado website.
Watkins said Continuum was not doing interviews about the change, but passed along a statement from Development Director Frank Cannon.
“While we had hoped to preserve the bridge, the prospect of demolition was always a possibility,” Cannon said in the statement. “After exhaustive analysis, we were not able to find a viable plan for reuse so we will demolish the bridge so the 9th & Colorado project can continue to move forward to completion.”
