{"id":486575,"date":"2026-06-10T23:30:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T23:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/486575\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T23:30:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T23:30:11","slug":"ddda-application-reveals-cus-plans-for-independence-plaza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/486575\/","title":{"rendered":"DDDA application reveals CU\u2019s plans for Independence Plaza"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Independence<\/p>\n

Independence Plaza was built in 1971 andlast sold in 2007. (Courtesy Guerilla Capturing)<\/p>\n

The University of Colorado Foundation is buying Independence Plaza to expand CU Denver, which says it plans to turn the office tower into \u201ca workforce\/economic\/business development and job creation hub.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an application seeking money from the Denver Downtown Development Authority, CU said it wants to use only part of the 25-story, 567,000-square-foot tower for educational purposes.<\/p>\n

It also wants to establish an \u201cinnovation and entrepreneurship hub\u201d there.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis Hub will drive new business development by hosting\/incubating\/accelerating regional startups in a co-located fashion with CU Denver, supporting both the local entrepreneurial community and CU Denver\u2019s growing innovation ecosystem,\u201d according to the application.<\/p>\n

The application says the building would also be used for \u201ccommunity- and government-serving functions,\u201d without elaborating.<\/p>\n

BusinessDen obtained the application through a public records request. Parts of the application were redacted by the City of Denver.<\/p>\n

BusinessDen broke the news in early May<\/a> that CU was under contract to purchase the tower, which sits on a full city block in the heart of downtown. It is just 21% occupied.<\/p>\n

In its application, CU said the total project cost would be $70 million, and it requested $35 million from the DDDA. But Jennifer Woodruff, a spokeswoman for CU Denver, said those figures will change when the university system submits a new application later this week.<\/p>\n

The original application says CU wants DDDA money to help renovate the building, to establish the innovation hub and to offer low-interest loans to companies building out office space.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy bringing students together with employers, students will gain real-life experiences and businesses will have direct access to their future workforce,\u201d the university wrote.<\/p>\n

CU already has some downtown property holdings. CU Denver\u2019s business school is at 1475 Lawrence St. One block away on 14th Street are two more school buildings, including the 14-story Lawrence Street Center, home to offices for the chancellor and provost.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Independence Plaza was built in 1971 andlast sold in 2007. (Courtesy Guerilla Capturing) The University of Colorado Foundation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":486576,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[114,293,85,46],"class_list":["post-486575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entrepreneurship","tag-business","tag-entrepreneurship","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=486575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486575\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/486576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=486575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=486575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=486575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}