In 2014, GH Phipps Construction Cos. completed the distinctive Science Pyramid at Denver Botanic Gardens (DBG). Many pundits in the industry said the complex’s exacting design would be too difficult to build. But Phipps got it done, and the multi-sided, multisensory structure, covered in hexagonal panels, won the Colorado Project of the Year from ENR Mountain States in 2015.
This year, the contractor has earned a new honor—Contractor of the Year for the Colorado, Wyoming and Dakotas segment of the ENR Mountain States region—and is back at work on DBG’s 24-acre campus. The 100,000-sq-ft Freyer-Newman Center for Science, Art and Education is the final piece of DBG’s 11-year-old master development plan. It caps a relationship between DBG and Phipps that dates back to the 1960s, when the company constructed the Boettcher Memorial Tropical Conservatory, one of Denver’s most iconic buildings.