The Colorado Railroad Museum in Golden is chugging along, closing on its second real estate purchase of the year earlier this month.
The 65-year-old organization bought a single-family home on a roughly half-acre lot at 16887 W. 44th Ave., right next door to the existing museum, for $740,000, records show.
“This was just a fortuitous happening … we’re not going to be making any immediate changes. We’re actually going to be renting out the property,” said Paul Hammond, executive director of the museum.
The homeowner was retiring and leaving the state, Hammond said, and next year will sell another property to the museum immediately to the east of this one.
The deals come on the heels of a $2.4 million, 4-acre land buy in January which the museum director described as “a defensive move”
“When we purchased that, we were essentially stopping a development from moving forward,” he said.
Hammond isn’t sure yet what he’s going to do with the new real estate his museum has acquired. But he does know one thing: The existing 15-acre site is not big enough for his plans.
“The museum already is a very popular experience here in the Denver region, but there are a lot more things that could be done to make this a really popular guest experience, starting with more of an indoor museum experience. We’re a largely outdoor experience,” he said.
The museum is in the midst of executing a 10-year plan to do just that, Hammond added.
The current layout is contained by a rail line that loops around the property’s perimeter. Much of the action for visitors centers around riding a train along that loop and exploring the various locomotives and railcars scattered around the property. The “roundhouse,” a five-track train repair facility, sits in the southeast corner of the lot next to a turntable that museum staff can push to move trains in and out.
Not much is located inside besides a model train display and a few exhibits. There is also a 5,000-square-foot library of railroad-related documents and drawings that area is running out of space.
Hammond has four key priorities. First, he wants to create a welcome center of sorts that will host more exhibits and indoor experiences. Moving the parking lot, which is located smack dab in the front of the museum, is also on the agenda.
“(T’s taking up some of our prime real estate,” he said.
Other plans involve expanding the library and the roundhouse. Hammond said the museum will have a formalized vision for expansion by early 2026.
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“When people think of museums, they tend to think of something a little grander,” Hammond said. “So we want to be able to provide a year-round space where we’ll be able to tell more of the story of Colorado’s reliance on and the role that railroads had played.”
The museum is likely having its best year attendance-wise, he added. It employs a staff of 16 full-time people along with a couple part-timers. It also has over 300 volunteers.
“Colorado has got an interesting railroad history, particularly because of the state’s geography,” Hammond said.
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