Lowry Air Force Base

The Lowry Air Force Base opened in 1938 and, at its height, provided training to over 57,000 service personnel in courses such as rocket propulsion, missile guidance, electronics, radar-operated fire-control systems, computer specialties, gun and rocket sights, and electronically operated turret systems. It also was one of the first technical schools for photography. The US Air Force Academy used Lowry as their interim home before they moved to Colorado Springs.

In 1994, the Air Force announced that the Lowry base would be closing and they began cleaning the land to standards mandated by existing base-closure laws. Simultaneously, the Lowry Redevelopment Authority (LRA) was born as a cooperative organization owned by the cities of Denver and Aurora. Its responsibility was to take ownership of the clean land and to develop it for future use.

 

 

For more information on the site’s history, visit:
Strategic Air Command.

Site-Specific History

• September 1994: Lowry Air Force Base Closed.
• September 1994: Lowry Economic Redevelopment Authority (LRA) was born as a cooperative organization made up of the Cities of Denver and Aurora.
• 1994-2002: The Air Force performed the steps necessary to transfer the property including environmental investigations and performing cleanups where necessary. (The responsibility of the LRA was to redevelop the property.)
• 2002: The Air Force privatized the cleanup of the landfill and groundwater at the former base to Lowry Assumption, LLC (LAC), an affiliate of IRG Redevelopment I, LLC.
• 2005: The Air Force sought to transfer all remaining lands, approximately 720 acres – cleaned or not – to LRA and to privatize the remaining environmental cleanup work.
• 2005: The City of Denver, as the successor to the LRA, did not want the LRA to take title to the landfill because it would have saddled the City with long-term liabilities. (Denver has a policy not to accept land in need of environmental remediation.) In fact, the City made it very clear to the LRA that they must dispose of the property so that the City would not be responsible for its future maintenance. Likewise, Denver Parks could not accept the property.
• 2005: IRG, LRA, Denver and the Air Force met to discuss its potential ownership of this property.
• December 28, 2005: The Air Force obtained approval from the State of Colorado to transfer the landfill parcel and others parcels requiring cleanup or investigation under a “Finding of Suitability for Early Transfer” (FOSET).
• 2006: Since 2006, IRG has been working on potential redevelopment of the landfill with its development partners.