Central City Design Guidelines

Client: City of Central City

Site: Central City, Colorado

Central City, located wholly within a Historic Landmark District, is one of Colorado’s best-preserved historic mining communities. Protection of this district, which attracts over one million visitors each year, is of extreme importance to the entire state. To ensure protection for these historic resources, the Collaborative was retained to re-write an existing historic preservation ordinance, with particular emphasis on providing a strict protectionist document while responding to all applicable historic preservation case laws. To provide objective criteria to any property owner wishing to alter his property, design guidelines were developed as a supporting document. The design guidelines were illustrative of the character of two designated areas – the commercial area and the residential area. The most important component characteristics to be maintained were selected, illustrated, and described in the document. The project was funded by the State Historic Preservation Office, the City of Central City, and HUD.