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/ BUILDING DIALOGUE / MARCH 2015
Mapleton: Rebirth of an Iconic School in BoulderC
onstructed of local sandstone masonry
and poised on top of a hill dotted with
centenarian silver maple trees, the Ma-
pleton Early Childhood Center in Boul-
der remains a contributing building within the
Mapleton Hill Historic District and carries with it
vast historic significance. Until its renovation and
repurposing, Mapleton was a K-5 neighborhood
school.
In 2003, the cost of maintaining the 114-year-old
school – combined with declining enrollment – led
to the school’s closure. The old beauty sat unoccu-
pied for 10 years, incurring moisture damage, peeling
paint and plaster, and an accumulation of insects and
bats.
How the historic Mapleton School was preserved
and repurposed into a districtwide preschool is a story
of perseverance, cooperation and the convergence of
many players and multiple issues. For the architects,
adding the layers of public process, funding, building
consensus and community was a mind-boggling puz-
zle.
City of Boulder Human Services spearheaded the
formation of a diverse group of stakeholders named
“The Mapleton Early Childhood Coalition” in 2007. The
coalition earmarked money for a feasibility study that
would explore converting Mapleton to an early child-
hood facility. It hired Alan Ford Architects to do the
assessment.
After Ford spent two years working with engineers
to study the building’s historic preservation and ren-
ovation needs, costs and environmental goals, Boulder
Valley School District then asked Ford for a schematic
design withmore detail. The model would be to repur-
pose Mapleton for ECE.
Serendipitously, in 2010, the district passed amill levy
override that would fund select early childhood edu-
cation programs at strategic locations across Boulder
Valley – and RTA Architects had just completed an as-
sessment that evaluated all existing district elementary
Doug
Abernathy, AIA
Principal,
RTA
Architects