Parker was once a small, rural town — but after the last few building booms, it's been completely subsumed by suburban sprawl that's spread developer housing, strip malls and gas stations across the area. But there's still a remnant of an old downtown on Main Street, and on a nearby ridge that rises above Sulphur Gulch, the town council, using a little over $20 million in existing funds, decided to build the Parker Arts, Culture and Events center, known as PACE. The facility, which opened last fall, includes a theater, an auditorium, a media lab, an art gallery and a dance studio. Done by Denver's Semple Brown Design, the smart-looking structure is made up of interlocking horizontal forms in concrete and brick that have been beautifully detailed. The pierced-metal wall is out of this world — and definitely outside the bland box that holds most of the rest of Parker's architecture.