AURORA | Here’s an equation for you. Take a 500-year flood, add in one city still reeling from the previous year’s horror, throw in two controversial gun laws and more than 50 grumpy sheriffs, mix in one 734,000-square-foot inpatient hospital tower and zero new members of city council.
Then subtract one 118,000-square-foot Havana Street eyesore and add in a few more steps toward buying legal marijuana here and around Colorado.
The answer? For this city of more than 330,000 people, it all added up to an eventful 2013.
Perhaps the biggest story of the year for Aurora was September’s flooding, which wreaked havoc citywide for more than five days.
Between Sept. 9 and Sept. 14, the city received 14.5 inches of rain. Usually, Aurora gets 15 inches of precipitation annually. In snow terms, that would have been about 12 feet of powder.
A year after the Aurora theater massacre, the city continued to recover from one of its darkest days.
On July 20, the anniversary of the shootings, more than 350 volunteers tackled 13 projects around the city, including working with Project CURE to send medical supplies to poor countries, gardening work by the Boys and Girls Club of America and several others. Together, the volunteers logged more than 1,225 hours on July 20.
In Aurora Public Schools, there are 59 schools — that breaks down to three preschools, 27 elementary schools, four P-8 schools, six middle schools, one 6-12 academy, four comprehensive high schools, one P-20 Campus, one online high school, three pilot schools, one vocational/technical college, one gifted and talented K-8 school, six charter schools and one home school support program.
And in Cherry Creek, there are more than 51,000 students across the 108 square miles of the district, an area that includes portions of Aurora, Cherry Hills Village, Centennial, Foxfield, Glendale, Greenwood Village, Englewood and Denver.
The districts shared a number last year: One. That’s the number of new superintendents for each. In Cherry Creek, Harry Bull took over, and in Aurora Public Schools Rico Munn did the same.
At the Anschutz Medical Campus, 2013 saw the University of Colorado Hospital unveil a new 12-story, 734,000-square-foot inpatient tower. The tower is part of a $400-million-expansion project and gives the hospital 144 more patient beds. Hospital officials said the expansion project created nearly 2,500 construction jobs on the campus and once the expansion is complete it will provide nearly 1,400 permanent jobs at UCH. When the tower is finished, UCH will have a capacity of almost 700 beds among its two inpatient towers.
The Gaylord Rockies Hotel and Conference Center will cost about $800 million and feature 1,500 rooms and 400,000 square feet of conference space making it the largest hotel in the state. That is, if the project ever gets off the ground. Some local hoteliers are doing what they can to stop Aurora’s most-talked-about project.
When pot is legal, Aurora may only allow 20 retail licensing permits in the city.
And on the transportation front, the city is spending $14.3 million on improvements for the I-225 Aurora Light Rail line’s eight stations.
Condemned Aurora murderer spared in 2013
Two decades after he gunned down four people at an Aurora Chuck E. Cheese’s, Nathan Dunlap’s court case reached what could be a conclusion this year.
In a controversial move, Gov. John Hickenlooper in May spared Nathan Dunlap’s life for now, granting an indefinite delay to the condemned quadruple killer and inflaming the state’s debate over the death penalty.
The decision is not outright clemency for Dunlap, just a “temporary reprieve” that indefinitely delays Dunlap’s execution, which had been set for August. Another governor could decide to lift the reprieve and allow Dunlap to be executed, but Hickenlooper said it is “highly unlikely” he will revisit Dunlap’s case.
Hickenlooper said when he looked closely at the death penalty in Colorado, he found a system deeply flawed.
“The system should be flawless in every sense,” he said. With questions about whether the state could acquire the hard-to-get drugs needed for a lethal injection, and the fact that several equally heinous crimes did not result in a death sentence, Hickenlooper said they system isn’t the flawless one it needs to be.
The move enraged Arapahoe County prosecutors and Dunlap’s victims, who said Dunlap deserved to die for his crimes.
In a fiery press conference after Hickenlooper’s announcement, Arapahoe County District Attorney George Brauchler said he was beyond disappointed.
“Disappointed isn’t strong enough,” he said. “This is a no-brainer about what justice is.”
Brauchler said the only person smiling after Hickenlooper’s announcement is Dunlap.
The issue is poised to be a central topic in Hickenlooper’s campaign for reelection in 2014.
VA hospital fight still brewing, but construction still ongoing
Department of Veteran Affairs officials say that despite legal setbacks, September floods, and a government shutdown, the Aurora Veterans Affairs hospital project is over 30 percent completed and will be ready to serve its first patient in October 2015.
On July 8, 2013, Kiewit-Turner filed a complaint with the Civilian Board of Contract Appeals, threatening to suspend the project because it was $400 million over budget, bringing the total cost of construction to more than $1 billion. Denver VA officials have said the facility will cost $800 million.
“We are hoping for a ruling in May,” said Dan Warvi, a spokesman for the Denver VA Medical Center, about the complaint.
The new medical center is slated to be 1.2 million square feet with nine buildings that will include two inpatient facilities, three clinics, as well as a research facility and an energy center with solar panels.
The interior design will be more efficient, Warvi said. “Every room, whether it’s an exam room, or a medical room, is standardized,” he said. The facility will include 182 beds, and the majority will be in private rooms according to VA documents.
Local leaders from the Veterans of Foreign Wars as well as former Colorado House Speaker Andrew Romanoff, who is running against Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman, toured the construction site for the Aurora Veterans Hospital on Dec. 2.
“I don’t think we got a hard-and-fast guarantee,” he said when he asked officials when the new medical center would be open. VA officials deferred to construction officials who did not comment on any possible delays in construction.
Aurora’s hotel still moving on, despite suits
The lawsuit to stop Aurora’s massive Gaylord hotel is unnecessary and should be dismissed, the City of Aurora said in a Dec. 4 motion in Denver District Court. The motion said “that causing delay and uncertainty is the reason why this lawsuit was filed.”
Aurora City Attorney Charlie Richardson would not put a dollar amount to the damages, but says every day litigation drags on escalates the financial impact for a project already estimated to cost $800 million.
“We want to dismiss the hotels’ lawsuit in Denver as soon as possible. Delay by pending litigation to thwart Gaylord is their strategy,” Richardson said.
The Colorado Economic Development Commission awarded the Gaylord hotel project $81 million through the Regional Tourism Act in May 2012 to construct the state’s largest hotel to date.
The City of Aurora, alongside developers, filed a lawsuit in Arapahoe County Court on Oct. 23 alleging the Denver hoteliers are abusing the legal system trying to stop the Aurora hotel’s development. The Denver hotels responded with a motion in November that the two suits be consolidated in Denver Court, which has put Aurora’s lawsuit on hold for now.
Aurora Mayor Steve Hogan said 10,000 construction jobs and 2,500 permanent jobs would be added because of the hotel. The city estimates that Gaylord Colorado will produce an economic impact of more than $8.2 billion over the next 30 years in the state.
“These types of deals don’t come around often,” Hogan said.
Wendy Mitchell, president and CEO of the AEDC, says construction should begin on the hotel in late 2014, barring any court injunction.
Months after massacre, theater reopens doors
Fewer than six months after a gunman opened fire there and killed 12 people, the Century Aurora 16 theater reopened in 2013.
Mayor Steve Hogan spoke about resilience and recovery to more than 200 people inside the renovated theater 9 during the grand reopening ceremony Jan. 17. Hogan, flanked by Gov. John Hickenlooper, the chief executive of Cinemark and local pastors, said the July 20, 2012 theater massacre would never be forgotten.
Many people are still grieving, he said, but the faces in the crowd reminded him that the theater shooting, which killed 12 and wounded 70, would not define the city of Aurora.
“As I think about everyone here tonight, I see resilience, I see strength, I see heroes, I see healing, and I see hope,” he said at the event. “We are a community that has not been defeated. We are a community of survivors and a community that is united in our recovery.”
Before it reopened, Cinemark renovated the theater inside and out, with a new facade out front and a new color scheme. Theater No. 9, where the rampage happened, was remodeled as one of the theater chain’s new “XD Cinemas,” with a floor-to-ceiling screen and enhanced audio equipment.
The move to reopen the theater was controversial in some circles. Some community members said they wanted the building torn down and replaced, as has been done with similar massacre sites like Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.
But city officials said the overwhelming desire of the community was to see the theater reopen as a sign that Aurora was resilient in the face of tragedy.
Floods crush Colorado and Aurora
When we look back at 2013, we might remember it as the year of the flood.
Although the city fared well during the flood compared with other cities such as Lyons, Boulder and Greeley, city crews estimate the cost of the floods at well into the millions of dollars. City staff said road repairs would cost at least $5 million alone.
“We came out of this very well, and I know it’s hard to believe with all the water,” Aurora Water spokesman Greg Baker said in the aftermath. “But our system moved the water as fast and as best as it could, and did an excellent job of it.”
The city estimates that Aurora received the same amount of rain in a week that it gets in an entire year, although it did little damage to infrastructure and property. Their two saving graces were Expo Park and Utah Park, which experienced severe overflow but still detained much of the water, Baker said.
“That was water that wasn’t going into people’s homes,” he said.
Baker said that the city had experienced a 500-year flood, or a flood that has a 0.2 percent chance of occurring in a year. The city was designed for a 100-year flood, or a flood that has a 1 percent chance of happening. Between Sept. 9 and Sept. 14, the city received 14.5 inches of rain; the city gets an average of 15 inches of precipitation annually, Baker said. Another way of considering the precipitation, city staff said, if the rain had been snow instead, it would have been about 12 feet of snow in three days.
APS to move forward on plans for new school, revamped Mrachek
The Aurora Public Schools District will use a complicated — and potentially risky — financial method to build a new school and redesign an existing middle school in the next few years.
The board voted in December to accept recommendations from Superintendent Rico Munn and other district administrators to deal with overcrowding at buildings across the district. Board member Kathy Wildman was the sole dissenting vote.
The approved recommendations include designing and building a new P-8 school at the Aurora Community Campus at East Sixth Avenue and Airport Boulevard in order to address overcrowding at the Vista PEAK Campus. Officials estimated the cost of the new building at $30 million.
Because of the district’s current debt load, APS leaders have said passing a bond election before at least 2016 would be highly unlikely at best. The money for the new building would come from Certificates of Participation, an approach that would carry some financial risk.
Using COPs would let APS take on debt without voter approval, using the new building as collateral in a lease agreement. The district could pay only interest on the building for the first five years, and could take a bond issue to the voters to start paying the principal amount after 2016. Officials tabbed yearly interest payments at about $1.4 million.
That risk caused one board member to vote against the plan.
“I still have my concerns,” Wildman said in December. “You can’t count on money that you don’t have,” she added, calling the district’s employees its greatest assets.
Retail pot coming to town, despite hazy rules
Aurora City Council went from asking “if” retail marijuana stores will be allowed within the city to “how many,” “when,” “where,” and “why not more?” in 2013.
It’s a stark turnaround from last year, when the council voted to impose a year-long moratorium after voters in the state approved marijuana for recreational use.
During the city’s first official update from the committee in December, the council received its first glimpse on where retail shops could go.
In addition to retail zoning restrictions, preliminary regulations by the committee suggested a 5,000-ft. separation between stores and a 500-ft. buffer from schools, daycares, hospitals and churches. Those buffers placed the stores mostly along East Colfax Avenue, South Havana Street and around Abilene Street.
Denver’s retail marijuana shops will be open for business starting January 2014, but Aurora has so far banned the stores until next May, and has discussed limiting the number of initial retail permits to 20 licenses.
The committee debated a request for a proposal process that could evaluate the businesses the same way the city chooses contractors. Tim Joyce, an assistant city attorney for Aurora, says though legal, an RFP process for retail pot would be unusual.
Councilman Bob Roth, chairman of the Amendment 64 Ad Hoc committee said there is a possibility for a pre-application period next year, where residents would be able to have input and ask questions about retail marijuana.
“Depending on how we go about this, if it’s first-come, first-served or whatever, there are going to be some challenges,” he said.
Aurora’s school districts get new bosses
Both of Aurora’s public school districts chose new bosses in 2013, but the new superintendents boast much different backgrounds.
The Aurora Public Schools Board of Education tabbed former lawyer and state education administrator Rico Munn to succeed John Barry as superintendent. Formerly a lawyer at a Denver firm, Munn’s resume is also packed with high-profile posts at local education agencies. Munn was former chief of higher education for the state.
“Part of the conversation that I had when they hired me was that it was not the board’s perception and not my perception that this is something I want to blow up and start over again,” Munn said earlier this summer. “It’s something that I’m trying to build upon.”
The Cherry Creek School District board chose former assistant superintendent Harry Bull is its new chief. Bull has plenty of experience in public education in Aurora. He kicked off his career as a social studies teacher at Aurora Central High School in the Aurora Public Schools district before moving to Overland High in 1984. That post was the first in a series at Cherry Creek.
He was an assistant principal at Smoky Hill High School before taking over as one of the first principals at Grandview High School after it opened in 1998. By the time he moved to roles in district administration as executive director of high schools and assistant superintendent of human resources, he’d logged nearly 30 years working in Aurora.
“My experience in Cherry Creek in Aurora has clearly indicated to me that we have seen and will continue to see changes in our demographics,” Bull said earlier this year.
Trial of accused theater shooter grinds into 2014
As James Holmes’ court case winds into its third calendar year, one of the biggest questions swirling around the accused mass murderer remains: Was he insane?
The case took a few steps toward answering that question in 2013, but it remains largely unknown whether doctors believe Holmes was sane when he gunned down 12 and wounded dozens more during a July 20, 2012, rampage at an Aurora movie theater.
Holmes’ lawyers say he is insane. They contend defense experts have examined Holmes and come to that conclusion.
He pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity this year and was sent to the Colorado Mental Health Institute for evaluation.
Doctors there evaluated Holmes for several weeks, but their findings have been sealed since they were issued.
But, based on legal wrangling this fall, it appears the doctors may have ruled Holmes at least partially insane. That’s because prosecutors asked the judge in the case to allow them to have another doctor evaluate Holmes.
Legal experts say prosecutors would only take that step if they were unhappy with the initial exam, a sign that the initial exam may have found Holmes insane.
Judge Carlos Samour has not yet ruled on whether the prosecution will be allowed to have another doctor evaluate Holmes, but he has made it clear that the question is a crucial one facing the court. As such, Samour indefinitely delayed Holmes’ trial, which was slated for February, so the two sides could hash out the question of further evaluation.
New ‘Hyperlab’ debuts at Gateway
Aurora Public Schools officials this year turned an abandoned garage behind Gateway High School into a new experiment in hands-on education.
The revamped “hyperlab” space at Gateway is the home base for the Aurora Public Schools district’s Innovation Academy. The program seeks to connect high school students with specialized learning based in science, technology, engineering and math. Past APS initiatives like the Aurora LIGHTS program have offered students a medical and biological focus, connecting them with lab space and faculty at the Anschutz Medical Campus.
In September, every inch of the 2,500-square-foot space behind Gateway was crammed with equipment, spare parts and seemingly random odds and ends. Plumbing supplies and plastic pill bottles share space with old analog oscilloscopes. They were among the many instruments that looked like props straight from an old science-fiction movie. Even the surviving traces from the former garage — the old lift system, compressed air tanks and walls lined with wrenches — add to the mood.
Randall Tagg, an associate professor of physics at the University of Colorado Denver, helped create the space. Tagg called the new space a “super inventor’s garage.” The new hyperlab at Gateway is set to stress engineering. With a wealth of tools, materials and mentoring, students will be encouraged to focus on how things work.
APS Innovation Academy students recently created a “smart bed” that monitors a sleeping patient — this new lab will offer a dedicated space for creating and finalizing such projects.
“It’s really a nice evolution. They were teaching trade skills with the auto shop,” Tagg said. “I see this as a 21st-century evolution of that. We’re trying to fuse those hands-on, trade-oriented education with science and technology.”
‘Aerotropolis’ fight erupts between metro mayors
Airports pumped $36.7 billion into the state’s economy in 2013, according to a Colorado Department of Transportation survey. An overwhelming share of that economic activity came from Denver International Airport.
But where’s there’s money to be gained, there’s controversy about who stands to gain it. The dozens of square miles of prairie land ripe for development surrounding DIA that’s been dubbed “aerotropolis,” straddles Denver, Aurora and Adams County.
Back in May, Denver proposed reneging on an agreement made two decades ago that states only airport-related development can occur on Denver’s DIA property, and all future off-airport commercial development would be located in Adams County and its municipalities.
Denver Mayor Michael Hancock wrote in a May 31 letter that a special district should be created around the airport — an area that includes Denver’s narrow land along Peña Boulevard. The district would assess a tax on future development in that area and then split most of the tax revenue among Denver, Adams County and communities within the county.
The money, as long as it’s matched in funds by Adams County, Aurora and Commerce City, could be used by those communities for road improvements, bridges and public infrastructure projects surrounding the airport, according to his proposal.
At a private Aug. 20 Airport Coordinating Committee meeting, Adams County, Brighton, Commerce City and Aurora officials talked about next steps. Aurora Mayor Steve Hogan said after the meeting that the group of 11 officials are hoping to reach consensus on how to address Denver’s proposal. Hogan said he’s not going to agree to any deal that wouldn’t directly benefit Aurora.
“We’re a city that has a lot of growing to do, and we need to make sure we are paying attention to jobs, revenues, competition, everything,” he said.
I-225 train on track for 2016 opening
Construction is ramping up and the kinks are getting sorted out on the Regional Transportation District’s 10.5-mile Interstate 225 light rail set to open in 2016.
Starting in the spring, construction will begin around Aurora business owners and residents located along East Exposition Avenue and South Sable Boulevard, said RTD Director Tom Tobiassen, whose RTD district encompasses the area.
He points to a sidewalk at the foot of an intersection at Sable and East Centrepoint where the multi-modal Aurora City Center station will replace a modest patch of concrete and road that serves as a bus transfer.
“This will all be very pedestrian-oriented. Bike lanes, protected walkways to get into the mall,” he said.
The northern portion of the light rail continues to undergo design changes. RTD realigned the train on the north side of Fitzsimons Parkway next to Sand Creek Park after the Anschutz Medical Campus raised concerns about electromagnetic interference if it was located along Montview Boulevard. The city also debated spending $2 million for a decorative archway to cover the nearby Colfax station bridge.
City officials say a much-needed parking garage for the Iliff station could be in the works by January 2014.
“The structure will probably include free parking for the first 600 spaces. Additional parking may come at a cost,” said John Fernandez who oversees FasTracks for the city’s Planning and Development department.
Last February Colorado passed a law that allows RTD to use outside contractors for parking near its stations, provided that RTD makes no money from the parking fees.
Music and medicine come to Fulginiti
Officials at the Fulginiti Pavilion for Bioethics and Humanities made a push to make music a bigger part of medicine this year.
In September, the center hosted Richard Kogan, a clinical professor of psychiatry at the Weill Cornell Medical College and co-director of the center’s Human Sexuality Program. Kogan lectured about the medical history of jazz composer George Gershwin, and he provided live piano accompaniment on an instrument provided through the Rockley Family Foundation. The nonprofit has also provided sheet music for the school’s orchestra and choir, and it’s responsible for the piano in the foyer that’s become such an important outlet for those on the campus.
The Pavilion also hosted a used instrument sale in November. Hundreds of pianos, electric keyboards, guitars and stringed instruments worth hundreds of thousands of dollars went on sale and display at the pavilion.
Therese Jones, director of the Arts and Humanities program at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, knows well that the distance between the arts and the art of medicine isn’t so far for the students, doctors and researchers who spend every day on the Anschutz campus. The link between the humanities and the science of healing is a central part of the mission of the programs at Fulginiti, she said.
Overwhelming emotions dominate year anniversary for Aurora massacre
Volunteers made original artwork, practiced tai chi and offered blood donations to mark the one-year anniversary of a local tragedy on July 20, 2013.
The first anniversary of the Century Aurora 16 theater shootings that killed 12 and wounded 58 brought volunteers from all backgrounds. As Aurora braced to face the difficult first-year anniversary of the theater shootings, organizations from across the metro area arrived in the city to offer support.
In all, more than 350 volunteers tackled 13 projects around the city that day, including working with Project CURE to send medical supplies to poor countries, gardening work by the Boys and Girls Club of America and several others. Together, the volunteers logged more than 1,225 hours on July 20.
Prayer and spiritual counseling, art therapy and free massages were offered at the grounds in front of the Aurora Municipal Center, along with a “healing wall” with original artwork by students from the Downtown Aurora Visual Arts gallery.
At the Aurora Strong Resilience Center on Peoria Street, volunteer activities included yoga, drumming, rock painting and paper crane workshops.
That kind of range of activities was designed to offer mourners different options for healing. Helena Trent, a volunteer from the Taoist Ta Chi Society in Denver, came to Aurora to lead classes in hopes of helping attendees discover healing energy.
“Tai chi is a healing practice,” Trent said. “It’s based on the energy of circulation. When we are in touch with our feelings, we allow the energy to move through us, to heal us.”
Community college tabs interim president for permanent gig
Community College of Aurora officials named Betsy Oudenhoven as the new permanent president of the college in December, following a five-month stint as interim president.
Oudenhoven took the position of interim president in July after the sudden resignation of Alton Scales. Scales had served less than a year as president. Colorado Community College System President Nancy McCallin officially appointed Oudenhoven to her new post as permanent president.
“I actually have never had aspirations to be a president,” said Oudenhoven, who started at CCA as vice president for student affairs in 2011. “Sometimes, professionally, opportunities come along that you don’t necessarily have in the game plan.”
Oudenhoven said her priorities include working on a new master plan for the college, improving access to services for students and addressing the achievement gap. She will also focus on improving student success. At a community college, that can mean making sure students receive degrees, transfer to four-year institutions or learn English.
“We want to make sure that they want to be successful in their goals,” Oudenhoven said. “Overall, that’s really the focus for everything that we do … Retaining our students and helping them to get where they want to be.”
Oudenhoven, a former administrator at the Joliet Junior College in Illinois, studied English language learning at community colleges. She received her master’s in counseling and guidance from the University of Colorado Boulder. She has a Ph.D. in higher education from Loyola University Chicago and a bachelor’s of science in psychology from St. Lawrence University in New York.
Regarding the extents of the Cherry Creek School District, it is contained entirely within Arapahoe County – therefore by definition, no portion of the District lies within the City and County of Denver, as stated by the article.
Giving away 100% of future tax revenue to a large corporation gets you a promise and hope. We can only wait and see how much the Gaylord corporate charity will cost Aurora’s citizens.