Picture this: A campus
integrated with the city
it calls home.

Sometimes the best ideas are hatched over fries and a burger (vegan, beef or buffalo). Sometimes the most lively conversations happen in line at the college bookstore. Or during intermission at a student production. Or before the basketball season opener. 

At the University of Denver, we think good ideas—for tackling community problems, for jumpstarting new businesses, for approaching a capstone project—are sparked whenever people of different generations, neighborhoods, walks of life and interests come together to share small talk and high hopes. 

That’s the thinking that animated the spring 2018 unveiling of the Denver Advantage Campus Framework Plan, which imagines an educational setting that builds community and fosters connections.

Inspired by DU IMPACT 2025 and designed as a flexible blueprint for how DU can evolve over the coming years, the framework plan goes beyond the three student-focused buildings currently under construction: a community commons, a career achievement center and a residential village for first-year students. 

The plan calls for transforming DU’s 125-acre premises by blurring campus boundaries and presenting a more welcoming face to the surrounding neighborhood and visitors. Look for a campus closely integrated with the city it calls home, one characterized by more retail, more restaurant options and affordable housing. Also on the drawing board: a hotel on the north side of campus and an array of sustainable transportation alternatives. (Although it could take up to 20 years to achieve the plan, many of its action items already are under way, including a shuttle program to ferry students, faculty and staff around campus.) 

“We thought long and hard about what it means to plan for the future while keeping our core University values at the forefront,” Chancellor Rebecca Chopp said. “Education, the student experience and financial access remain our top priorities. To fulfill that promise, we’re creating spaces where people can establish a sense of belonging and build community.”