Building tours start at the Denver Art Museum. Transportation provided. Meet at the front entrance for check in at 10:30 AM on Wednesday August 19th.
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Step onto the Auraria Campus and into the Summit House, the tallest mass timber building in Colorado and Metropolitan State University of Denver's first-ever student housing project. It's a 12-story landmark that's redefining what affordable, on-campus living can look like.
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This 201,000-square-foot, 10-over-2 building doesn't just house 586 students across 155 units; it proves that mass timber can compete head-to-head with concrete on cost, schedule, and student experience. On this exclusive tour, you'll hear straight from the project teams who made it happen; the architects, structural engineers, and the general contractor, as they walk through the decisions, trade-offs, and breakthroughs that brought this tall wood vision to life.
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What makes this project stand out?

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A Type IV-B mass timber structure that came in cost-neutral with concrete.

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60-foot CLT panels spanning the full building footprint, enabling an 8-day floor cycle and a ~20-month construction schedule.

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A design built around mass timber's strengths from day one. Small, repeatable column grids, prefab exterior walls with pre-installed windows, and three all-glass "beacon" community spaces on every floor that put the columns and beams on full display.

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A ground-floor mix of public-facing retail and a Classroom to Career hub that stitches the building into the surrounding Auraria district and downtown Denver.
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Your guides from SAR+ (Shears Adkins Rockmore), KL&A, and PCL Construction will unpack how they designed for mass timber rather than around it, how they hit GMP on DD drawings, navigated 60-foot panel deliveries and installation in downtown Denver, threaded mechanical systems through exposed timber, and solved the moisture management puzzle of erecting timber through a Colorado winter.
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Plus, they'll share how this project is reshaping the economics of student housing and setting a new precedent for tall wood construction across the country.

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If you want to see what's possible when an entire team commits to mass timber, this is the tour to be on.

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