Original Aurora and the Anschutz Campus

Pricing trends

Original Aurora is among the most affordable detached-home areas in the central metro, priced below Central Park and Lowry across the Denver line. Renovated bungalows near Stanley Marketplace and the campus carry the premium; original ranches and condominiums near Colfax offer the entry points. Aurora's city-level table below carries the current numbers.

Citywide figures for Aurora. Source: Local Market Update, August 2026, REcolorado data compiled by the Colorado Association of REALTORS®. Neighborhood-level figures vary; ask me for comparables on any specific home. See all area tables.

About Original Aurora

Original Aurora is the city's oldest section along East Colfax Avenue, laid out in the 1890s and filled with bungalows and post-war ranches. Next to it, the former Fitzsimons Army hospital became the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, now one of the largest employment centers in the state, and the Stanley Marketplace turned an aviation hangar into the area's best-known food hall. For buyers who work at the campus, it is the shortest commute in the metro.

Location

The area runs from the Denver line at Yosemite Street east to Peoria Street and Interstate 225, between Montview Boulevard and 6th Avenue, with Central Park and Lowry in Denver to the west, Stapleton's old airport land to the north and the rest of Aurora to the east. The Colfax and Fitzsimons stations on the R Line and the 40th and Airport station on the A Line serve it.

History and background

The blocks along East Colfax between Yosemite and Peoria streets are where Aurora started. Platted in 1891 as Fletcher, the town was a stop on the road east from Denver and grew around the streetcar line on Colfax, which by the 1920s was lined with motels, diners and the shops that still define the corridor.

Fitzsimons Army Hospital opened just north of the town in 1918 to treat soldiers returning from the First World War and became one of the Army's largest medical centers. President Eisenhower recovered from his 1955 heart attack there. When the Army closed the base in 1999, the University of Colorado moved its medical school and hospitals to the site, and the Anschutz Medical Campus has since grown into one of the largest employment centers in Colorado.

The historic neighborhood around it, now called Original Aurora, kept its early twentieth-century bungalows and its mix of cultures. East Colfax has become the metro's most international restaurant row, and the Stanley Marketplace, in a 1950s aviation hangar, opened in 2016 as the area's new gathering place.

Housing and architecture

The streets hold 1910s to 1940s bungalows and cottages near Colfax and the Original Aurora historic blocks, 1950s and 1960s brick ranches across most of the area, and new townhomes, apartments and the Fitzsimons Village condominiums around the medical campus. Much of the stock is original and modest, which is why renovators and investors are active here.

Parks and recreation

Del Mar Park with its pool and the Moorhead Recreation Center, Fletcher Plaza, Bluff Lake Nature Center and the Sand Creek and Westerly Creek greenways serve the area, with Central Park's parks and the Rocky Mountain Arsenal refuge a short ride north.

Dining, shopping and daily life

East Colfax carries one of the metro's most diverse runs of restaurants and markets, with Ethiopian, Mexican, Korean and Vietnamese food within a few blocks, and the Aurora Cultural Arts District's galleries and theater. Stanley Marketplace on Dallas Street holds restaurants, a brewery, shops and events, and groceries are at the King Soopers on Colfax or the markets along Havana Street.