Love & Associates, Inc. in conjunction with several specialty consultants, produced a Master Site Development Plan, a Flood Mitigation Plan and Design Guidelines for a 180-acre site scheduled to be the home of the University of Colorado’s Research Park. Love & Associates, Inc. was then retained to design and supervise construction of infrastructure for the Phase I development. Stormwater management, flood control, roads, utilities, open space improvements, and wetland mitigation were all key components of the infrastructure design. In addition, Love & Associates, Inc. designed a 100-year flood channel for Skunk Creek through the site and improvements to Bear Canyon Creek.

Striving to balance the need to attract desirable business to the area with concern for preservation of the natural environment, the Research Park is intended to house private corporations, institutes and government agencies performing research in association with the university. Buildings clustered around plazas, courtyards, water features and open space amenities will reflect the character of a village-scale campus environment. The common thread which links the Park through its extensive open space system will be a central watercourse, unprecedented in its complexity of purpose. University owned water rights were utilized to divert water into the Research Park, creating the central watercourse. Meandering through the site, the waterway provides irrigation for the development as needed, defines a recreation / transportation corridor and aesthetic focus, and intercepts and conveys runoff flows to a regional detention basin in the Boulder Creek floodplain.

Concern for the quality of stormwater runoff re-entering Boulder Creek, combined with the need to mitigate nine (9) acres of wetlands impacted by the development prompted the planning of a wetland park within the floodplain. There, wetland vegetation cleanses stormwater runoff and slows flood flows from Boulder Creek. In total, twenty-three acres of wetlands, ponds paths, and educational and recreational amenities were created, including an interpretive area, a research area, and amphitheater, and multi-functional paths. The Missouri River Division of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers called this stormwater management/wetland / flood mitigation design the model multi-function environmental design project for the nation. This project has also received acclaim from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Colorado Association of Stormwater and Floodplain Managers and other regional agencies for its innovative mitigation design.