United States Olympic and Paralympic Museum

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The United States Olympic Museum will honor the Olympic and Paralympic ideas, document the history of the United States Olympic and Paralympic participation, and celebrate the achievements of the United States Olympic and Paralympic competitors.

Location:

The 60,000 square foot United States Olympic and Paralympic Museum is on a 1.7-acre site at Vermijo Avenue and Sierra Madre Street. Looking to its west is America the Beautiful Park and Pikes Peak.

Plan Goals:

The U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Museum features 12 galleries that include exhibits on athlete training, the Summer and Winter Games and the USOPC Hall of Fame.

The project was conceived in 2012, as Olympic leaders looked to establish the first full-fledged Olympic museum in the United States. The Olympic Training Center, located a few miles from the museum in downtown Colorado Springs, draws more than 130,000 visitors a year but had limited exhibit space.

The U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Museum has received national acclaim since its opening on July 30, 2020. The Museum has generated nearly 1,100 stories – including national placements in the Associated Press, ESPN, New York Times, and Washington Post – with a total aggregate readership of more than 1.3 billion. Although there has been national attention for Colorado Springs’ world-class attraction, the Museum has pivoted to focus its marketing efforts on the local community.

The project is estimated to have cost around $91 million, which is about $15 million over the figure reported by The Associated Press at the groundbreaking in 2017. The increased cost is to cover state-of-the-art technology that will allow each visitor to receive a near-personalized experience. For example, visitors will be able to pick a favorite sport or athlete, and a chip embedded into their ticket will prompt specific content to come up at each exhibit. The museum will also have an interactive map that allows visitors to learn about the more than 12,000 athletes who have competed for Team USA.

The effort to create the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Museum began in 2013 and after years of foundational work, construction on the project began in June of 2017. In 2014, the USOM signed a renewable agreement with the U.S. Olympic Committee granting a 30-year relationship for the operation of the Museum. Established as the lead project in the City for Champions initiative, the U.S. Olympic Museum will:

Serve an estimated 350,000 annual visitors, of which 60% to 80% are projected to visit from out of state
Create 40 to 60 new permanent jobs with salaried between $30,000 and $100,000
Generate an estimated $28.3 million in new sales tax revenue over 30 years

The Museum hired nationally recognized and locally grounded professionals to design and build the 60,000 square-foot Museum, and engaged U.S. Olympic and Paralympic athletes in content and exhibition development.

The Museum has received financial commitments from many local, state and national bodies. In addition to private donors, three local banks teamed up to buy bonds issued by the Colorado Springs Urban Renewal Authority, secured by a state-approved tax increment arrangement, and $26.2 million has been contributed to support the construction of the Museum.

The Museum will further establish Colorado Springs as Olympic City USA. It will become a premier cultural destination, welcoming people from near and far, and of all ages and backgrounds, to come together in the spirit of the Olympic and Paralympic Games.