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09-2006: Nolte Celebrates Opening of Fitzsimons Parkway |
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 2006 |
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Nolte Celebrates Opening of Fitzsimons Parkway
On April 16, representatives of Nolte Associates, Inc. joined City of Aurora's Mayor, Ed Tauer, and over 250 others to celebrate the Grand Opening of Fitzsimons Parkway. The result of efforts by many in attendance is that a vital piece of infrastructure for the Fitzsimons Medical Campus and Bioscience Park is now in place. The Parkway was a dynamic undertaking to carve a roadway into existing landscape, provide future utility capacity to the surrounding area, and remediate four landfills in the path of the Parkway. What started as primarily a roadway project became a monumental coordination effort with all of the complexities of the landfills, utilities installed beneath the roadway to serve future development, golf course redesign, and simultaneous design (by others) of the Colfax widening, Sand Creek Park, and future connection of Colfax and I-225.
Nolte's design team took advantage of numerous opportunities to add value back into the process through development of several alignments. Recommendation for the preferred and final alignment came with solutions for a number of challenges around the area of the Parkway and Colfax Avenue. Stated by Ron Degenhart, City Engineer for the City of Aurora, "Design coordination with the future I-225/Colfax interchange area greatly impacted the complexity. This area was problematic with future ramp grades, Toll Gate Creek, an Xcel transmission tower, and future light rail. Nolte developed a way to provide an interim road (Potomac Street) using the existing bridge, avoiding the creek and tower, while accommodating the future interchange and light rail. This solution avoided the NEPA process and saved many months in the schedule."
The Nolte Team, awarded the project by the City of Aurora in 2002, consisted of nine specialty subconsultants that worked together for over two years on the design of the Parkway. Construction was completed ahead of the original scheduled date of May 6, 2006, and the Gateway to Fitzsimons was opened. "The result of all the very difficult planning, design, and construction over the previous seven years is that the new star in Aurora, the Fitzsimons Medical Campus and Bioscience Park, now has a major piece of its infrastructure in place. The Fitzsimons Parkway will provide transportation, access, utilities, and economic development for the campus well into the future," said Degenhart. |
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