Twenty-Five Years of Progress at Fitzsimons Innovation Community

By: Fitzsimons Innovation Community

This year, Fitzsimons Innovation Community is proudly celebrating 25 years of innovation since the grand opening of Bioscience 1 in 2000. For every one of those 25 years—and many before that—Lyle Artz, Site Manager of Fitzsimons Innovation Community, has been here. We were honored to sit down with him and discuss the history, logistics, collaboration, and hard work involved in the early days of the redevelopment of the campus and how all of those elements are still part of the Fitzsimons Innovation Community fabric 25 years later. But really, the story starts even earlier than that.

In 1996, following the closing of Fitzsimons Army Hospital and the surrounding military base, the City of Aurora created the Fitzsimons Redevelopment Authority to plan for the future use of the space. The first employee to start work on that project was Lyle Artz. “I was the second person hired and the first person to start work here back when it was still part of the City of Aurora’s redevelopment plan. Since January 2, 1996, I’ve been working on everything from environmental cleanup, building demolition, landfill cleanup, new sewer lines, new water infrastructure, new storm drainage, and new streets. If you think of a public works department for a city, I was hired to do all of those things.”

Twenty-five-plus years may seem like a long career, but Artz’s history on this property starts long before that first day at work in 1996. During his 22-year Army career, Artz was stationed at Fitzsimons Army Medical Center twice, the first time being in the 1970s when he was a student at the Fitzsimons medical maintenance school. “I went through all the classes like equipment maintenance and X-ray machine technology, then when I finished my studies, I went to Korea. When I returned to Fitzsimons later in my career, it was as the chief of the medical maintenance school. That training is what gave me such a deep understanding of the Fitzsimons campus. I know the buildings, the water, the utilities, even all the underground steam tunnels.” When the site manager position for the Fitzsimons Redevelopment Authority came available right after Artz’s retirement from the Army, he applied and was the perfect fit.

To really grasp how things have changed in the past decades, it helps to understand how Fitzsimons Army Hospital, also known as Fitzsimons General Hospital, began. In 1918, the U.S. Army founded Fitzsimons General Hospital to care for soldiers returning from World War I. Research and efforts to advance patient care were always at the heart of operations here, and Fitzsimons General Hospital was initially a place where treatments were developed to treat chemical warfare injuries that were so common in World War I. More than a century later, that same spirit of learning, advancing, and helping people is still the beating heart of the campus. When the hospital closed in 1996 and redevelopment began, that desire to continue fostering a home for discoveries that help people was a driver of what came next. Today, Fitzsimons Innovation Community is home to over 80 life sciences companies and 800 employees, and the ideas, products, and innovations that happen on this campus keep that legacy alive every day.

Lyle Artz is proud to have had a part in all of it, and we wanted to know what parts of the evolution have meant the most to him. “Right after we started construction on Bioscience 1, the university (of Colorado) started building the new medical school, then the outpatient building, then several more. At one point, there were seven buildings under construction on this campus at the same time. Once the University was established, Children’s Hospital built their facility, and then the VA. While we were developing and executing on our campus plans, the University was doing the same on their side of the campus. The two campuses basically grew up together, and that’s where so much of the collaboration started.” Artz explained to us that when physicians or researchers on a medical school campus come up with an idea that they want to commercialize, they’re legally required to do that research and development away from the medical school campus to avoid conflicts of interest. In the past, those researchers would have had to find space somewhere, and often it was far away, expensive, and many times unsuitable for lab research. “Now, when they have an idea, they can just come across the street and have space here, and they are typically able to customize that space to meet the exact needs of their R&D.” He explained to us that, with the development of the living space on the Fitzsimons Innovation Community campus, innovators are now able to move easily between their jobs, their research projects, and their homes. The collaboration between campuses and the ability to live so close in effect streamlines lives for people who are working on important new discoveries.

We wanted to know what Artz was most proud of from his nearly three decades working on the development of Fitzsimons Innovation Community, and he told us that he loved helping facilitate the development with the University of Colorado Medical School because, not only did he like working with all they key players in the City of Aurora, but he could also see the value of the future collaborations that would happen on a campus where innovation and education work in tandem. He has also loved watching the progress happen in real time. “When we began this project, there were only 10 people working on the entire square mile. The campus had 380 old buildings—several that needed demolition—a lot of empty land, and lot of expensive, time-consuming remediation work that needed to be done. Now we have several high-tech research buildings, living space, hotels, restaurants, retail space, and green areas to enjoy the outdoors. It’s a busy, successful community now, and watching that progress happen has been one of my favorite parts. Fitzsimons Innovation Community is now an economic engine that helps the City of Aurora and helps a lot of people, too.” He explained that companies are staying a lot longer on campus these days, too. When Bioscience 1 was the only building, companies would have to move out when they outgrew their space, often heading to Boulder or downtown Denver, but now they’re staying in the Community and simply relocating to bigger spaces in other campus Bioscience buildings nearby. That continuity is also part of what’s helping create a bigger sense of community. People are staying, raising families, enjoying what Aurora has to offer, and doing their work on the Fitzsimons Innovation Community campus for many years.

When Lyle Artz retired from the Army in 1995 after returning from his work in Europe streamlining Army hospital operations, his retirement ceremony was the very last one to happen on the parade field of the Fitzsimons Army Base before the redevelopment began. The University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus is now home to some of the most advanced medical buildings in the country. “When I retired from the Army, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do yet, but my family and I loved the Denver metro area, and my wife was already working at the VA here. When the city formed a redevelopment authority that involved a military base, hospitals, and all of the logistics skills that I’d used in my military career, we were happy to stay here.”

The grounds of this former military base are filled with stories and history of a different time in our country’s past. Lyle Artz’s history is woven right into that story, as well as into the saga of how Fitzsimons Innovation Community was conceived, funded, and executed. Each success story that comes out of this Community is built on innovation, creativity, research, and hard work, and we like to think a bit of the history of this place is part of that recipe, too. Lyle Artz has found himself drawn to this land in several eras of his life. Fitzsimons Innovation Community is just glad he keeps coming back.