More than 600,000 people annually scale the 14,115 feet to reach the summit of Pikes Peak in Colorado Springs, Colo. Until recently, they were greeted by a Summit Complex that had fallen into disrepair. But that’s about to change, as the city of Colorado Springs, in partnership with the U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine, and Colorado Springs Utilities, is building a new Summit Complex and Visitors Center, which breaks ground on June 4.
A second site will consolidate a Plant Building, CSU Communications Facility, and High-Altitude Research Laboratory. The existing Summit House will remain open through the end of construction in the fall of 2020.
The project’s budget is $50 million. The building will be 26,000 sf (compared to the existing center’s 12,000 sf), and include a 200-seat dining area, gift shop, and parking for up to 200 cars.
Pikes Peak, which brigadier general and explorer Zebulon Pike discovered in 1806, is often called America’s Mountain, and its summit is a National Historic Landmark. Its scenic highway let’s anyone, regardless of age or physical condition, reach its apex, with recreation areas and trails along the way.
The intent of this project’s Building Team is to give a seamless, immersive, fully accessible experience with facilities specifically designed for the summit’s harsh environment. “Our goal was to put the experience of Pikes Peak first—the breathtaking views and spectacular beauty—while minimizing the visual impact of architecture on the mountain,” says Alan Reed, FAIA, Design Principal for GWWO Inc./Architects, the Baltimore-based firm that’s the project’s design architect.
RTA Architects is the architect of record. The rest of the Building Team includes HCDA Engineering (SE), Kiowa Engineering (CE) ME Group (MEP), GE Johnson Construction (GC), DHM Design (landscape architect), AECOM (extreme climate consultant), Gallagher & Associates (exhibit design), Jensen Hughes (code and accessibility consultant), The Preservation Studio (historic preservation), NASH Architectural Solutions (specifications), and Webb Foodservice Design (food service design).
The Summit Complex is being built on the southeast side of the mountain, which will help mitigate the effects of extreme winds and temperatures on the building. Image: RTA Architects, GWWO Inc./Architects
The Building Team sought public input for its final design, whose process began in 2015. The Complex’s exhibits will provide information about the Peak’s formation, discovery, and historical place. Visitors will also be able to experience the mountain via accessible trails and walkways.
The new Visitors Center will be encased in special glass with triple-glazed electrochromic material that darkens to cut glare and solar gain, helping to prevent excessive heat and marred views.
"Because the views are the whole thing," Stuart Coppedge, FAIA, Principal in Charge at RTA Architects, told the Colorado Springs Gazette. "We're really trying to avoid mechanical stuff that can break, that takes a lot of maintenance. The glass darkens to cut the glare. As the sun moves across the sky, the glass would track it around."
The large windows will also feature a ceramic frit that provides UV patterns in the glass that birds can see but people can't.
The exhibits will provide information about the mountain's formation, discovery, and historical place. Image: Gallagher & Associates, GWWO Inc./Architects
The project is pursuing LEED Gold and Living Building Challenge certifications. The Summit Complex is expected to produce more energy than it consumes, thereby reducing its operating costs and minimizing its ecological impact. Resilient materials, and its location on the southeast side of the mountain, will help the Complex resist extreme winds, temperatures, and freeze thaw cycles. And the site has been designed to take advantage of the mountain’s hydrological water flows.
”Our entire team embraced the technical challenges of this project with passion, skill and dedication, knowing how important and special Pikes Peak is,” says Coppedge.
Due to construction, parking at the site will be limited and restricted. And the Pikes Peak Cog Railway is closed indefinitely. So last Thursday, the city launched a more frequent shuttle service to the top. Between 30 and 35 shuttles seating 15 to 24 passengers each will make pickups and dropoffs every hour, with the goal of reducing waiting to no more than five minutes. The shuttles will run from May 31 through September 15, which are Pikes Peak’s highest volume months.
Related Stories
| May 18, 2011
Carnegie Hall vaults into the 21st century with a $200 million renovation
Historic Carnegie Hall in New York City is in the midst of a major $200 million renovation that will bring the building up to contemporary standards, increase educational and backstage space, and target LEED Silver.
| Apr 13, 2011
Southern Illinois park pavilion earns LEED Platinum
Erin’s Pavilion, a welcome and visitors center at the 80-acre Edwin Watts Southwind Park in Springfield, Ill., earned LEED Platinum. The new 16,000-sf facility, a joint project between local firm Walton and Associates Architects and the sustainability consulting firm Vertegy, based in St. Louis, serves as a community center and special needs education center, and is named for Erin Elzea, who struggled with disabilities during her life.
| Apr 13, 2011
Expanded Museum of the Moving Image provides a treat for the eyes
The expansion and renovation of the Museum of the Moving Image in the Astoria section of Queens, N.Y., involved a complete redesign of its first floor and the construction of a three-story 47,000-sf addition.
| Apr 12, 2011
Long-awaited San Francisco center is music to jazz organization’s ears
After 28 years, SFJAZZ is getting its first permanent home. The San Francisco-based nonprofit, which is dedicated to advancing the art of jazz through concerts and educational programs, contracted local design firm Mark Cavagnero Associates and general contractor Hathaway Dinwiddie to create a modern performance center in the city’s Hayes Valley neighborhood
| Apr 12, 2011
Entrance pavilion adds subtle style to Natural History Museum of Los Angeles
A $13 million gift from the Otis Booth Foundation is funding a new entrance pavilion at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. CO Architects, Los Angeles, is designing the frameless structure with an energy-efficient curtain wall, vertical suspension rods, and horizontal knife plates to make it as transparent as possible.
| Apr 5, 2011
Zaha Hadid’s civic center design divides California city
Architect Zaha Hadid is in high demand these days, designing projects in Hong Kong, Milan, and Seoul, not to mention the London Aquatics Center, the swimming arena for the 2012 Olympics. But one of the firm’s smaller clients, the city of Elk Grove, Calif., recently conjured far different kinds of aquatic life when members of the City Council and the public chose words like “squid,” “octopus,” and “starfish” to describe the latest renderings for a proposed civic center.
| Mar 11, 2011
Chicago office building will serve tenants and historic church
The Alter Group is partnering with White Oak Realty Partners to develop a 490,000-sf high-performance office building in Chicago’s West Loop. The tower will be located on land owned by Old St. Patrick’s Church (a neighborhood landmark that survived the Chicago Fire of 1871) that’s currently being used as a parking lot.
| Feb 11, 2011
Sustainable features on the bill for dual-building performing arts center at Soka University of America
The $73 million Soka University of America’s new performing arts center and academic complex recently opened on the school’s Aliso Viejo, Calif., campus. McCarthy Building Companies and Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Architects collaborated on the two-building project. One is a three-story, 47,836-sf facility with a grand reception lobby, a 1,200-seat auditorium, and supports spaces. The other is a four-story, 48,974-sf facility with 11 classrooms, 29 faculty offices, a 150-seat black box theater, rehearsal/dance studio, and support spaces. The project, which has a green roof, solar panels, operable windows, and sun-shading devices, is going for LEED Silver.
| Feb 11, 2011
BIM-enabled Texas church complex can broadcast services in high-def
After two years of design and construction, members of the Gateway Church in Southland, Texas, were able to attend services in their new 4,000-seat facility in late 2010. Located on a 180-acre site, the 205,000-sf complex has six auditoriums, including a massive 200,000-sf Worship Center, complete with catwalks, top-end audio and video system, and high-definition broadcast capabilities. BIM played a significant role in the building’s design and construction. Balfour Beatty Construction and Beck Architecture formed the nucleus of the Building Team.
| Feb 11, 2011
Kentucky’s first green adaptive reuse project earns Platinum
(FER) studio, Inglewood, Calif., converted a 115-year-old former dry goods store in Louisville, Ky., into a 10,175-sf mixed-use commercial building earned LEED Platinum and holds the distinction of being the state’s first adaptive reuse project to earn any LEED rating. The facility, located in the East Market District, houses a gallery, event space, offices, conference space, and a restaurant. Sustainable elements that helped the building reach its top LEED rating include xeriscaping, a green roof, rainwater collection and reuse, 12 geothermal wells, 81 solar panels, a 1,100-gallon ice storage system (off-grid energy efficiency is 68%) and the reuse and recycling of construction materials. Local firm Peters Construction served as GC.
