CU focusing on conference center to serve campus needs

BOULDER – While there are more questions than answers, the University of Colorado at Boulder has confirmed that it needs a conference center.

CU recently surveyed its various colleges, schools and academic departments to determine whether or not the university itself could regularly fill an on-campus conference facility.

“What we’ve essentially identified with this survey … is a real need,´ said Bronson Hilliard, CU’s media relations director. “Our conference facilities are sub par.”

For about a decade, the university and the city of Boulder have discussed building a larger conference center that would help keep meetings in Boulder instead of organizers using space primarily at the Omni Interlocken Resort in Broomfield or the Westin Westminster in Westminster.

Currently in Boulder, the largest indoor meeting space is about 9,500 square feet, and both CU and the city are tossing around the idea of a roughly 35,000-square-foot conference center.

“That’s kind of a general ballpark figure,” Hilliard said.

The university plans to continue talks with the city to determine an overall need for a conference center, but Hilliard said CU’s main focus is a campus-oriented facility.

With approximately 29,000 parents, perspective students, high school counselors and more visiting campus yearly for the admissions department alone, a meeting space could be used for everything from admission and orientation meetings to educational symposiums.

Hilliard said CU is confident it could fill a campus conference center nearly every day of the year.

“The feeling was that we could support a conference center and a hotel as well,” he said.

If the university had its way, the possible center/hotel combination would be built on, or adjacent to, campus.

“There’s been no specific area that we’ve pinpointed. There are several areas that would be nice. Some of those are on campus and some of those are adjacent to campus,” Hilliard said. “The closer to campus the better.”

Initial plans call for a 35,000- to 40,000-square-foot conference facility that could accommodate between 40 and 1,200 people along with a 150- to 250-room hotel.

Hilliard speculated that if the project were to move out of the initial planning phase, CU would likely focus on designing the conference center with sustainability in mind and potentially have it Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, certified.

That potentially means low-flush toilets, recycled water and other green-oriented design aspects, he said.

Dan Pirrallo, general manager of the Millennium Harvest House Boulder that has an 18,000-square -foot meeting space, said there’s a need for a larger conference facility.

Currently, Boulder and Boulder County lose revenue when event organizers go elsewhere for a larger venue, he said. While a new conference facility has potential to compete against his business, Pirrallo said it could also bring more people to the area and ultimately help local hotels and meeting spaces.

“The concept is a concept that needs to be continued to be explored … and could be beneficial to this community,” he said.

Until CU has a concrete plan for a facility, the city plans to wait and see what happens before deciding to move forward with a separate one, contribute to a university facility or cease discussing the topic.

“We’re currently not actively working on some research,´ said Mary Ann Mahoney, executive director of the Boulder Convention and Visitors Bureau. “So we’re kind of on hold right now.”

Mahoney helped lead discussions and research into the city’s need for a conference center along with potential cost, sites and more. She said city officials thought it would be too confusing for Boulder to conduct a citywide study at the same time CU looked into a center.

“I think it would be interesting to hear what CU has found out, and certainly we would share that information with our city council,´ said Molly Winter, Boulder’s director of downtown and university hill management division and parking services.

Winter, who helped Mahoney with the city’s conference center research, said the council has other, more important priorities, which is another reason a meeting facility isn’t at the top of the priority list.

But with $350 million to $400 million in construction slated to take place on campus, a potential conference center isn’t at the top of CU’s priority list, Hilliard said. But it may not be too close to the bottom, either.

“Certainly within the next three to five years,” he said.

Contact Ryan Dionne at 303-440-4950 or e-mail rdionne@bcbr.com.

on Facebook on LinkedIn