Sugar Square, nestled in the heart of downtown Denver, is a 4-story addition to the historic Sugar Building that fills a narrow 25-foot-wide empty gap between two buildings, effectively weaving modern design into the fabric of the city’s rich architectural history. The project accomplishes an adaptive reuse of space by repurposing the exterior walls of the existing building as an interior wall of the new building, contributing to both structural integrity and aesthetic appeal.

The general contractor was seeking to expedite construction due to the upcoming baseball season and that site’s proximity to Coors Field, home of the Colorado Rockies. With game day traffic in mind, erecting the structure during this time was challenging, especially since no construction was allowed on game days. This challenge joined with the fact that there was virtually no lay-down space for staging, necessitated the use of prefabrication for portions of the project that included exposed rib slab flooring and insulated interior structural walls, allowing for accelerated construction and just-in-time delivery.