Commercial Landscape Installation Colorado Springs
CSEC Courtyard
Location
4405 N Chestnut St
Colorado Springs, CO
Client
Colorado Springs
Early Colleges
Collaborators
Neenan Archistruction
Russell + Mills Studio
The Challenge
From Parking Lot to Outdoor Learning Landscape
Colorado Springs Early Colleges came to the project with an ambitious goal: turn a 2-acre courtyard parking lot — a hard, lifeless expanse of asphalt — into a one-acre outdoor learning environment for its students. The vision called for more than new landscaping. It meant reshaping how hundreds of students would move through, gather in, and learn from the heart of their campus.
Fisk Lawnscapes was selected to lead the landscape installation, working alongside Neenan Archistruction and Russell + Mills Studio, who led the site design.
The Transformation
Where asphalt once dominated, broad new walkways now guide students safely and easily around campus, anchoring a student drop-off area with a clear path to the main entrance.
An outdoor classroom, built around large Siloam boulders, gives teachers a new setting to bring lessons outside, shaded by structures with integrated hammocks that turn the space into a spot kids genuinely want to be. A contemplative garden and flexible seating areas round out a courtyard designed for the full range of how students actually use their time between classes.
Bringing the courtyard to life took over 1,800 individual plants — a mix of trees, shrubs, ornamental grasses, and perennials — installed with premium soil amendments and mycorrhizae to give every plant the best possible start. The team took special care to protect the site's large, mature existing trees throughout construction, preserving the shade and character they'd already established. A dry creek bed and thoughtfully graded planting beds were built in to manage stormwater on-site, turning what used to run off a parking lot into water that now infiltrates and feeds the landscape.
A new irrigation system, engineered around efficient drip zones and industry-leading components, keeps the plantings thriving while conserving water — a critical consideration in Colorado's climate. Flagstone walkways and a crushed-stone breeze path tie the hardscape together, while boulders, river cobble, and cedar mulch finish the beds with texture and durability built for heavy student traffic.
The result? A space where hundreds of students and families gather, learn, and play every day
What was once an unusable, two-acre sea of asphalt is now a green, welcoming heart of campus — a space where hundreds of students and families gather, learn, and play every day.
It's landscaping doing more than looking good: managing water, providing shade, and giving a school community a place that feels genuinely theirs.
Fisk Lawnscapes has continued on with the commercial maintenance of the property since installation, ensuring the plantings established successfully and that a high-traffic, high-visibility campus landscape continues to look its best for years to come.
