Emily Griffith Technical College is set to pay $11 million for Centennial Hall, a more than 100-year-old building on the former Johnson & Wales University campus in Denver’s South Park Hill neighborhood, with plans to occupy the roughly 66,000-square-foot property by October. The Denver Public Schools Board of Education unanimously approved the acquisition in April, and the deal is expected to close in October 2026.
The seller is Urban Land Conservancy, which owns about half of the 25-acre Mosaic Community Campus at 1800 Pontiac St., according to Bisnow. Emily Griffith Technical College, the public adult education and postsecondary arm of Denver Public Schools, currently operates out of a district building at 1860 Lincoln St. and also has a presence at its Osage campus at 1205 Osage St. The college plans to use its reserve fund alongside 2020 bond money allocated to the institution to complete the purchase.
Centennial Hall sits on approximately 0.73 acres and is located east of a public quad on the Mosaic Community Campus. The building will let Emily Griffith Technical College centralize its student services and administrative staff, and it’s expected to host esthetician programs as well as community events such as graduations, per the same report. Sarah Heath said Centennial Hall has a similar timeline to the longevity of the college itself, and that the building will be an excellent space for learners, adding that it will serve as a hub for specific classroom-facing programs.
A Building With Deep Roots on the Park Hill Campus
Centennial Hall was originally constructed in 1886 as Treat Hall, the anchor building for Colorado Women’s College, and it remains protected by a permanent historic preservation easement held by Historic Denver that safeguards its Richardsonian Romanesque exterior no matter who owns the property. The wider Park Hill campus first opened in 1909 as Colorado Women’s College with just 59 students, later grew past 1,000 students, and eventually passed to the University of Denver before Johnson & Wales University bought it in 2000. Johnson & Wales operated the site for 21 years before closing its Denver campus in 2021…