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
| Aug 11, 2010
College uses renewable materials in new library
A 93,000-sf Library and Academic Resource Center will replace Los Angeles Valley College's 1960s-vintage library. Pfeiffer Partners Architects designed the building to be consistent with the college's master plan, with its learning clusters and arcade circulation system. To obtain LEED certification, the center will use recycled and renewable materials, such as bamboo.
| Aug 11, 2010
Museum celebrates African-American heritage
The Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture recently completed construction on the Wells Fargo Cultural Campus in Charlotte, N.C. Designed by the Freelon Group, Durham, N.C., with Batson-Cook's Atlanta office as project manager, the $18.8 million project achieved nearly 100% minority participation.
| Aug 11, 2010
Northeast Lakeview College opens in Texas, to serve 15,000 students
After four years of construction, Northeast Lakeview College, the newest addition to Alamo Colleges, is complete. Designed by Overland Partners Architects in collaboration with Ford Powell & Carson, the nine-building, 285-acre campus in Universal City, near San Antonio, will serve up to 15,000 students.
| Aug 11, 2010
Recreation facility scores with sustainable features
A new $79.1 million health and learning center is under construction on the Northern Arizona University campus in Flagstaff. The 270,000-sf facility will house recreation space, classrooms, health and counseling services, and the Lumberjack Stadium for track and soccer teams. Designed by the Phoenix office of OWP/P Cannon Design with Mortenson Construction as CM, the project is aiming for LEED ...
| Aug 11, 2010
Embassy's dual façades add security and beauty
The British government's new 46,285-sf embassy building in Warsaw, Poland's diplomatic quarter houses the ambassador's offices, the consulate, and visa services on three floors. The $20 million Modernist design by London-based Tony Fretton Architects features a double façade—an inner concrete super structure and an outer curtain wall.
| Aug 11, 2010
Firehouse converted to hip hot property
Sound the alarm! A 9,000-sf former firehouse is being converted into a new multipurpose space for ZUMIX, a nonprofit music and arts organization that's partnering on the project with Landmark Structures of Woburn, Mass., and the East Boston Community Development Corporation. The $2 million renovation of the 1920s structure, known as Engine Company 40 Firehouse, includes a complete gut job to ma...
| Aug 11, 2010
And the world's tallest building is…
At more than 2,600 feet high, the Burj Dubai (right) can still lay claim to the title of world's tallest building—although like all other super-tall buildings, its exact height will have to be recalculated now that the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) announced a change to its height criteria.
| Aug 11, 2010
Project is music to school's ears
Florida Gulf Coast University is building a $7.55 million Fine Arts Building on its campus near Ft. Myers, Fla. The 25,000-sf building—the first project in the school's plan for an entire music complex—will house the music program of the College of Arts and Sciences. The facility includes a 200-seat recital hall, rehearsal hall, music labs, studio rooms, and administration offices.
| Aug 11, 2010
Theater offers spectacular views inside and out
A 500-seat proscenium theater sits at the heart of the 35,000-sf Performing Arts Pavilion at the Jackson Hole Center for the Arts. The entertainment and cultural facility, designed by Stephen Dynia Architects, Jackson Hole, Wyo., also houses glass-walled rehearsal rooms that offer passersby views of the activity going on inside and multifunction lobby with views of Snow King Mountain.
| Aug 11, 2010
Design for Miami Art Museum triples gallery space
Herzog & de Meuron has completed design development for the Miami Art Museum’s new complex, which will anchor the city’s 29-acre Museum Park, overlooking Biscayne Bay. At 120,000 sf with 32,000 sf of gallery space, the three-story museum will be three times larger than the current facility.
