The virtual cohomological dimension of~$\operatorname{ Out}(F_n)$ is given precisely by the dimension of the spine of Culler--Vogtmann Outer space. However, the dimension of the spine of untwisted Outer space for a general right-angled Artin group~$A_\Gamma$ does not necessarily match the virtual cohomological dimension~$\textsc{ vcd}(U(A_{ \Gamma}))$ of the untwisted subgroup~$U(A_\Gamma) \leq \operatorname{ Out}(A_\Gamma)$. Under certain graph-theoretic conditions, we perform an equivariant deformation retraction of this spine to produce a new contractible cube complex upon which~$U(A_\Gamma)$ acts properly and cocompactly. Furthermore, we give conditions for when the dimension of this complex realises the virtual cohomological dimension of~$U(A_\Gamma)$. We finish with two applications of our construction; in particular we show that the difference between the dimension of the untwisted spine and~$\textsc{ vcd}(U(A_{ \Gamma}))$ can be arbitrarily large.
Categories: math.GR math.GT