Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge Administration Building Denver, Colorado

Now the nation’s premier urban National Wildlife Reserve, Rocky Mountain Arsenal has evolved over the decades. The site once served an Army facility associated with weapons manufacturing during WWII before being decommissioned and transitioning to its current use as a wildlife refuge. With increasing park use, new administrative facilities would be designed and built to improve operations as well as visitors’ experiences.

Expanding Features in a Sustainable Design for a Park’s Growing Use

The site had 250,000 visitors in 2015 and is expecting soon eclipse 1 million annual visitors. Otak, as a subconsultant, provided architecture, landscape architecture, and structural design services for a new headquarters building and meeting facility for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) administrative staff, separate from visitor facilities. With a focus on sustainability, the new facilities were designed with a minimum LEED Gold standard. Solar readiness and daylighting strategies were included to lower the energy requirements for lighting and cooling, while the stone siding is locally sourced. The project consists of a 4,200 square-feet headquarters building, a 1,000 square-feet meeting annex building, a 56-space parking lot, realignment of entrance driveways and gateway features, expansion of the existing parking lot and associated hardscape, landscape, and utility systems.