CSU Buildings and Grounds History

Animal Sciences Building, 1962

From CSU's Sense of Place:  A Campus History of Colorado's Land-Grant University, by James E. Hansen, Gordon A. Hazard, and Linda M. Meyer.  Fort Collins, CO:  Colorado State University, 2018.

Architects – James M. Hunter and Associates (original), Michael L. Aller, David Lingle and Bradley Massey worked with Gabrielle Schuller, Don Grody, Adam Balaban, and Katie Anderson of Bennett, Wagner & Grody Architects (2014 Renovation), Cator, Ruma & Associates of Lakewood, Colorado (2014 renovation)

Builders – Hensel Phelps Construction Company of Greeley (original), Gerald H. Phipps Construction Company, Inc. of Fort Collins (2014 renovation), Haselden Construction Company of Centennial, Colorado (2019 addition)

350 West Pitkin Street

Built on the site where cattle pens once stood on the College Farm, the Animal Sciences Building was opened for its first day of classes on January 6, 1960.  James M. Hunter designed this facility that has been utilized primarily for livestock studies of the College of Agricultural Sciences.  Located on the south side of the “Agricultural Quadrangle”, this 40,374 square foot facility cost $800,000 to build. The Hensel Phelps Construction Company of Greeley, Colorado built the new building.  It provided new office, laboratory and classroom space for the studies connected with Animal Husbandry.  This field of study became called Animal Sciences.

The state-of-the-art Dairy Products Laboratory was located on the first floor of the east wing of the building.  It had cost $110,000 to build. Using milk trucked in from the CSU Dairy, products were made for consumption at campus food service dining facilities.  It had its own loading dock.  A variety of cheeses were made in the laboratory to be marketed by members of the Dairy Science Club in their annual Christmas cheese boxes sold in December.  The Meats Laboratory was in the west wing of the building. The spacious abattoir used the first and second floors and had its own loading dock.  Heavy-duty refrigeration systems were used for the refrigeration rooms in both labs.  Their compressors were located on each end of the building.

In October 1993, the Department of Animal Sciences purchased the C&C Meat Processing Company Plant at 4020 John Deere Road in northeast Fort Collins.  In 1995, the department moved its meat processing operations off the Main Campus and began using the vacated abattoir space for a carcass viewing classroom.  This facility was sold by CSU in late 2006 as research on meat packing changed in the Department of Animal Sciences.

Beginning in June 2006, plans were started for renovations to the 60-year-old Animal Sciences Building.  The renovations would support the needs of more than 800 students majoring in one of Colorado State’s signature academic programs. Efforts to raise money to help fund the project were started.

In November 2011, the Board of Governors approved a $7.5 million bond issue to provide some of the funds for the first phase of renovation that would cost $19.5 million. This was one of the first steps in upgrading some of Colorado State’s agricultural education facilities. The $7.5 million was used to replace the plumbing, mechanical, electrical and telecommunications systems in the 41,558-square-foot building and install modern audio-visual systems in the renovated teaching laboratories and classrooms.

The architectural firms of Aller, Lingle and Massey, Bennett, Wagner and Grody, and Cator, Ruma & Associates combined their skills to design the project.  The Gerald H. Phipps Construction Company served as the builder.  Phase-one of an intended two-phase project began in January 2013 and was completed in the fall of 2014. Most of the original building was transformed into a very modern building on the south side of the Monfort Quad.  However, the existing 5,000 square foot Meat Lab that was the former 1960s vintage Dairy Processing Laboratory was not renovated with the 2014 building revitalization project. It was purposely left untouched in anticipation of the phase-two construction of the Food Innovation Center. These old facilities were undersized and outdated. Food safety concerns limited the types of products that could be produced for teaching and research in the current facility.

CSU is also the only major meat science program without a fully functional meat-processing facility. Meat harvesting capability was eliminated on the Main Campus in 1993. This problem was compounded by the removal of the Stock Judging Pavilion in early 2016. The loss of this building required classes needing the use of a livestock arena to be temporarily relocated to the ARDEC (Agricultural Research, Development and Education Center) Campus.  This was never deemed an acceptable long-term solution due to the distance that students must travel.

Fundraising continued in hopes of eventually building phase-two which would enlarge and extend the building to the south.  Mike Lesiak of the international meatpacking corporation, JBS USA, became a lead donor to build phase-two. In November 2016, it was announced that the new “JBS Global Food Innovation Center” named in the honor of Gary and Kay Smith.

On March 27, 2017, the official groundbreaking ceremony took place under the shelter of a large tent on the Monfort Quad to begin the process of building the new Food Innovation Center. Work by Haselden Construction began in August 2017 and was done by spring semester of 2019.  The expanded Animal Sciences Building eliminated about half of the old parking lot north of the building.

Nearly doubling the size of the original building, this 36,600 square foot expansion, costing $14.8 million was financed mainly by donations.  It was built to meet LEED Gold standards.   The Food Innovation Center included an on-campus livestock arena that incorporated innovative livestock handling facilities designed by Professor Temple Grandin as well as the facilities needed for teaching students about the processing of meat and poultry from ranch to plate.

The expanded building provided additional faculty and staff offices, a variety of new classrooms, and a 200-seat auditorium.  Expanded laboratory space and research kitchens were integrated into the design.  The long tradition of selling packaged meat to the public could now be done from a retail store.  A coffee shop was provided for people using the Animal Sciences Building.  Once again, the core of the Main Campus became home to the traditional educational aspects of the Department of Animal Sciences.