The University of Colorado Boulder will begin constructing a new academic building in October, making the $175.4 million project the first such endeavor since 2018.
The 79,200-square-foot building will create an academic home for the chemistry and applied math departments. It will be located on the main campus off Regent Drive and include lab space, office space, a 200-seat auditorium, space for future quantum research labs and indoor and outdoor student gathering or study spaces.
“It’s a very rare event on main campus, and so for this building to be built to support science education and research is amazing,” said Irene Blair, CU Boulder dean of natural sciences.
The University of Colorado Board of Regents, the elected board that oversees the CU System, approved the project on Thursday. Construction will begin in October with move-in anticipated for December of 2026.
The design and construction of the building has sustainability in mind and will align with the campus climate action plan. It’s on track to achieve LEED Gold certification and aims to achieve LEED Platinum, if possible. LEED, which stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is a certification for sustainable building.
d’Andre Willis, CU Boulder’s assistant vice chancellor for planning and design, said the goal is to achieve an energy use intensity of 100 to 105, and the baseline for other buildings around campus is 200.
“It is significantly lower than our baseline and other lab buildings on campus, and we’re really excited about that,” Willis said.
Willis said the building will have an open and welcoming feel with many exposed wood details.
“One of the things I’m very excited about is we’ve been able to design the building so half of it is wood that’s engineered wood,” Willis said. “The really cool thing about that is the carbon impact and wellness and beauty it brings to the building and occupants.”
There will be an open study space near the entrance and spaces outside for people to study, socialize or collaborate on different projects.
“I think being in a building like that is very inspirational and helps people to do better and feel better about their work and education,” Blair said.
Blair said the high-level research in chemistry demands extremely fine control over aspects including temperature, vibration and humidity which isn’t possible in the existing labs. She said sciences like chemistry also tend to be in some of the oldest buildings on campus because they’ve been around so long.
“As science has moved forward, these buildings are really not able to meet the needs of the research that’s been done and also not meeting the needs of students to research with the faculty or take classes,” Blair said.
Because chemistry and applied math have different, complementary lab needs and both needed an academic home, the two departments were a good choice for the building.
“To have a centralized academic home helps to promote the teaching and research they do,” Blair said, adding, “It allows them to fit together in a space without feeling like they are directly competing over the same space.”
The Board of Regents also approved a $9.5 million renovation to the Koelbel Building at CU Boulder and a $33.5 million renovation to the Ekeley Sciences Building’s teaching laboratories.
The Koelbel renovation, beginning this summer and concluding in January, will create new study, conference and administrative suites while addressing about $2 million in deferred maintenance. The Ekeley renovation will modernize 13 instructional chemistry labs and address $15 million in deferred maintenance beginning in January and concluding in January 2026.
Funding for the new chemistry and applied math building will come from multiple sources of campus cash, including money from the chemistry department, the College of Arts and Sciences and borrowing money through bonds. The last major new academic building at CU Boulder was in 2018 with the opening of the Center for Academic Success and Engagement.
“This is really going to bring some great academic life to that east edge of campus,” Willis said.
