Aurora, CO

Aurora's most dramatic reuse sits along East Colfax Avenue. Fitzsimons opened in 1918 as an Army hospital and closed as a military installation in 1999. Construction on the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus began the next year. University health schools and research facilities now share the site with UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital, Children's Hospital Colorado, and a regional VA medical center. What was once a fenced military property has become a regional destination for classes, research, appointments, and shift work, remaking the northwest corner of Aurora and giving the city an unusually concentrated medical and bioscience district. Hospital entrances, university buildings, and new development now meet the older Colfax commercial fabric at the campus edge. The rest of Aurora is harder to read from a single center.

ATTRJeffrey Beall / CC BY-SA 3.0

It spans parts of three counties and extends from the older Colfax grid far southeast through suburban neighborhoods to open prairie. Former and current military land creates broad breaks in that pattern. Lowry Field opened in 1938, Buckley Field followed in 1942, and Buckley now operates as a Space Force base. Its white radomes support missile-warning and space-based infrared missions and are visible from many eastern neighborhoods. Aerospace and defense, health care, bioscience, manufacturing, logistics, and airport-related work are distributed across a city where job centers can be many miles apart. The base and airport lands also interrupt otherwise direct-looking routes between eastern subdivisions and older neighborhoods. RTD's R Line connects Anschutz, Aurora City Center, and southern neighborhoods and offers a transfer to the A Line for Denver International Airport.

ATTRRekonDog ( talk ) / CC BY-SA 3.0

It serves one important north-south axis rather than the entire city; buses and cars handle many cross-town trips. A home near a station can offer a very different commute from one only a few miles away across the street grid. East Colfax is undergoing another transportation change. In 2026, construction for bus rapid transit was active around Colfax and Havana, with the future service planned to replace the existing 15 and 15L buses. Until it opens, the construction itself is the practical reality for nearby residents and businesses. Access to rail, frequent buses, or the regional road network varies sharply by neighborhood. A few miles can therefore change the network's practical value.

ATTRXnatedawgx / CC BY-SA 4.0

East Colfax also holds Aurora's oldest commercial center and Cultural Arts District, including the Aurora Fox, Fletcher Plaza, a library, and smaller performance spaces. Several miles south, Havana Street forms a six-mile multicultural business corridor of restaurants, markets, repair shops, and other locally run businesses. The range reflects immigrant and refugee communities and makes international food visible in daily commercial life. In 2026, the city renamed its long-running Global Fest as Aurora Fest. The June gathering retained multicultural performances, food, an international market, and a Parade of Nations. Colfax and Havana therefore do more than carry traffic: they provide the most legible shared civic and commercial spaces in a city otherwise divided among medical, military, suburban, and prairie-edge landscapes.