DENVER — Meow Wolf plans to open a permanent installation in Denver in 2020, it was announced Thursday.
The wildly popular Santa Fe, New Mexico-based interactive art collective with ties to the creator of “Game of Thrones” has been around for two years with the House of Eternal Return, and became an instant hit.
Meow Wolf was created by artists with wild imaginations. It’s designed to “transport visitors into different dimensions” through colorful, interactive and out of this world art.
The $50 million playhouse will be above the Interstate 25, Colfax Avenue and Auraria Parkway viaducts that wrap it on three sides at 1338 First St.
The location is just across the Platte River from Sports Authority Field at Mile High, and is close to the Pepsi Center and Elitch Gardens.
Meo Wolf’s Denver development partner is Revesco Properties, which is an owner and managing partner in Elitch Gardens.
“This delightfully challenging site and our very strange building program are conspiring to produce a most unusual building and an incredibly unique experience,” said Anthony Guida, design director for Meow Wolf. “We’re thrilled to design this dynamic addition to central Denver, which will activate both the area below and above the viaducts and draw visitors throughout the whole year.”
A warehouse and an office building once used by Elitch Gardens will be taken down when construction begins in the third quarter this year.
Meow Wolf will start selling tickets to its Denver exhibit beginning Thursday. There are 20,000 general admission tickets for opening week at $50 apiece; 1,000 tickets to a private gala event on the opening night at $1,000 apiece; and 100 lifetime passes that include two tickets to any Meow Wolf space, event and concert in the world for the rest of your life for $10,000 apiece.
Meow Wolf Denver will have four stories and 90,000 square feet with 60,000 square feet of “immersive art experience. It will be triple the size of Meow Wolf in Santa Fe.
It will have a bar, cafe, retail space and a music venue.
The Santa Fe exhibition is in an old bowling alley owned by George R.R. Martin of “Game of Thrones.”
“The people of Denver have a treat coming their way,” Martin said.
Santa Fe Meow Wolf now has 200 artists and is a place where “guests discover a multidimensional mystery house with secret passages, portals to magical worlds, climbing apparatus, and surreal, maximalist and mesmerizing art exhibits.”