Santa Fe's Meow Wolf Expands To Downtown Denver

It’s official: Meow Wolf Denver will open in 2020.

At 90,000 square feet, the arts collective’s first permanent exhibition outside of its Santa Fe home will be more than three times the size of the original space. Inside, it will continue the group’s style of “maximalist storytelling” through bright and bold installations from local artists.

But at a press conference Thursday morning Meow Wolf CEO and co-founder Vince Kadlubek said visitors shouldn’t expect a carbon copy of the Santa Fe site.

“What’s really an interesting thing about Meow Wolf is that … at the end of the day, it still is an art project,” Kadlubek said. “So we don’t even quite know what it’s going to be until we open the doors.”

The location, like the project itself, is unique. The venue will sit on a triangle-shaped plot of land -- likened by the Denver Post as resembling a “droopy slice of pizza” -- nestled between the viaducts of I-25 and Colfax Avenue, just south of Elitch Gardens.

“We chose the site because it's funky, bizarre and an opportunity for low impact urban infill,” said Meow Wolf’s design director Anthony Guida. “What better way to use the dynamic space between a bunch of viaducts than to build an unbelievable Meow Wolf experience?”

It’s the popular immersive art project’s first big expansion. Meow Wolf has a staff of about 200 artists, technicians and project developers. Kadlubek described them as the "corporate version of an art collective."

Crews are expected to break ground on the venue this spring. While the site won’t be open for another two years, 20,000 presale admission tickets have already been set aside.