Four homes built over 100 years ago are slated for demolition to make way for renovations to Palmer High School in downtown Colorado Springs, a move that goes against the wishes of some neighbors.

After over a year of public outreach and exploring preservation options, District 11 will move forward this month with the demolition of the former commercial and residential properties — at 429 N. Nevada St., 219 E. St. Vrain St., 221 E. St. Vrain St. and 430 N. Weber St. The late-Victorian-style homes, built between 1882 and 1902, are undergoing abatement.

The decision comes as massive construction projects are underway at Colorado Springs’ oldest high school, which opened in 1875. The removal of the homes will help make way for a new track and field that will unify the campus between St. Vrain and Platte Avenue. The school’s buildings and facilities are divided by Boulder Street.

District officials have said the unified campus will improve student safety and reduce travel times between class periods.

The decision to raze the properties comes after a group of neighbors and historians advocated to save the properties.

The Historic Uptown Neighborhood Association raised its concerns with District 11 representatives after learning about the homes’ possible destruction.

It argued that the buildings were too significant to the city’s history to tear down. The entire residential district, which runs from East Bijou to East Cache la Poudre streets, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.

The association also expressed concerns about a lack of notice or outreach from the school district and the uncertainty surrounding D-11’s master plan for renovating the school.

“And, basically, the talks stopped because we didn’t want them destroyed and I think they (the school district) wanted us to get behind them. They wanted our support and we never gave it to them,” said Cheryl Brown, president of the association, which works to improve, preserve and protect the North Weber Street-Wahsatch Avenue Historic Residential District.

D-11 purchased the homes in June 2025, following the unveiling of its master plan that February to renovate the school. Along with the track and field, upgrades to the school will include a new, modernized academic wing, renovations to the existing 1939 building and its courtyard. The new wing is scheduled to open in February 2027, and the renovations are expected to be completed by March 2028.  

After meeting with the association in May, June and October last year, D-11 discussed and explored relocating the homes intact to another location. But no viable relocation option emerged, district spokesperson Jessica Wise said, and D-11 began moving forward with the demolition process in June 2026.

The district wouldn’t specify the parties it contacted, but said it was told that the condition of the structures, the cost of relocation, the difficulty of identifying a receiving site and the logistical challenges of physically moving the homes through an urban area resulted in no viable partner or relocation plan emerging.

It added that it was willing to transfer the homes at no cost and contribute toward the cost of moving them.

The district hired a firm to complete architectural salvage work and contracted with architects to document the homes in a historical resource assessment report.

The report, released in November 2025, concluded that the homes didn’t “rise to the threshold for individual listing in the National Register of Historic Places.”

The process the architects used was meant to determine eligibility on a home-by-home basis, rather than a historic district, which is evaluated by standards that are “very high,” Brown said.

Meanwhile, association members contacted the National Register, the Pioneers Museum, the Penrose Library and the state’s historic preservation department, with little response.  

Earlier this year, the City Council approved D-11‘s zoning change proposal and the school’s land-use plan. After initially denying it, the councilmembers approved the permanent vacation of the Boulder Avenue section between Palmer’s buildings.

Following the council’s first votes, all communications with the district ended, Brown said.

The removal of the homes, the construction of the track and field, and a new parking lot are Phase 1B of the Palmer High renovations, with funding coming from D-11’s capital budget. Although a target date of 2028 was previously mentioned, the district has yet to finalize a construction timeline for this phase.

‘We’re losing more’

Local historian Tim Scanlon, who worked for the city planning department for 25 years, has spent the past two years recording the history of the Weber-Wahsatch Historic District and conducting walking tours of the homes that have persevered over the years. He began showcasing and sharing the history of the St. Vrain properties in 2024.

The homes’ gabled roofs, stone foundations and diamond, half cove and octagon shingles stand out as architectural details unique to the Victorian era. The homes also help tell the story of the city’s burgeoning middle class at the turn of the 20th century and contribute to the neighborhood’s overall character.

Scanlon noted, however, that “you don’t treat neighborhoods as museums” and that the homes had been altered over the years, so it was “not incorrect” for them to get passed over individually by the National Register.

“Which is not to say they don’t have historic significance,” he said.

Many of the neighborhood’s residents around this time were downtown business owners or were miners and contractors during the Cripple Creek-Victor mining rush of the 1890s.

D-11 has said it plans to save parts of the homes. The salvage firm has removed reusable and historically significant materials ahead of demolition. Some were retained for possible inclusion in a future Palmer Alumni Museum, while other salvageable materials have entered the architectural salvage and reuse stream.

Additionally, stone that surrounded 429 N. Nevada Ave. is being retained for potential use along the Palmer campus perimeter, district officials said. Some stone is being donated and relocated to the Middle Shooks Run neighborhood at the request of neighbors.

While Brown said she’s glad that some of the homes have been salvaged, it isn’t the same as preservation.

She explained how photographs, mementos and exhibits, such as those found in the Pioneers Museum, can’t replace former downtown neighborhoods like the Conejos or ones subject to urban revitalization like Lowell.

“We’ve lost neighborhoods, you know? We’re losing more and there’s no recreation of them,” she said.

“And the saddest thing to me is that we have School District 11 doing it. It’s not even like it’s a builder. It’s an educational institution tearing down your historic neighborhood.”

The association has also documented homes in the neighborhood and their history. Scanlon said he plans to continue developing the walking tours throughout the district, with hopes of finalizing them next year, before compiling all the information into a single publication.

He said it will include the four properties slated for demolition.