Colorado School of Mines has gone off campus for its next big play, buying a nearly 51,000-square-foot laboratory and warehouse at 16194 W. 45th Drive in Golden and planning to convert it into an innovation hub focused on critical minerals research and commercialization. The site sits about a 10-minute drive from the main Mines campus and includes high-bay and lab-ready spaces that can handle everything from bench-scale work to pilot demonstrations. University leaders say the facility will host industry, government and startup partners while giving students more hands-on training time in real-world research and development space.
Mines is pitching the move as a strategic expansion of its innovation ecosystem, describing the facility as roughly 50,000 square feet of laboratory and warehouse space aimed at speeding commercialization across the critical minerals value chain. In a campus announcement, President Paul C. Johnson and the university’s critical-minerals director pointed to co-location of startups, established companies and academic researchers as central to moving technologies out of the lab faster. Mines also said it closed on the purchase this month and is already reviewing inquiries from potential partners, according to Mines Newsroom.
The initial report landed with the Denver Business Journal, and the transaction soon started appearing in commercial real estate roundups. As the Denver Business Journal noted, local coverage followed Mines’ announcement, while BusinessDen recorded the sale as a $5.85 million transfer from J&N Real Estate Company LLC, with Tanner Digby representing the seller and Kurt Liss of JLL representing the buyer…