A business entity associated with the Broncos paid $7 million to buy a vacant lot from the Denver Housing Authority in recent months near a site under consideration for a new stadium, and the sale agreement included unusual stipulations in line with the DHA’s mission.
The new owner will have to build 150 housing units on the site or nearby, according to the sale agreement for the property at 10th Avenue and Osage Street, which was obtained by The Denver Post. It will have to place affordable housing restrictions on at last half of them, and the agreement sets deadlines to find a location and finish a project — or else the DHA could buy back the land.
The site is just south of the light-rail station there — and just across railroad tracks from Burnham Yard, the 58-acre, state-owned former railyard that’s among the metro Denver options under consideration if team owners decide to leave their current stadium.
The purchase adds to a growing list of connections between the Broncos and Burnham Yard as their lease at Empower Field at Mile High nears expiration in early 2031. The Post has reported that Broncos-connected entities have paid more than $150 million to snap up a series of other properties near the yard since August. And team representatives have been in talks with city and state officials as well as Denver Water — whose large headquarters campus is near Burnham Yard — about the potential site, in some cases for more than a year.
River Oak, a limited liability company, purchased the 62,000-square-foot lot from the housing authority, according to details of the sale agreement that was dated March 4. The sale closed in the following weeks. That LLC is affiliated with the Broncos, according to reporting this week from BusinessDen.
A Broncos spokesperson declined to confirm to The Post whether the team was involved in the transaction. Attempts to reach Stephanie Schiemann, a DHA spokesperson, on Tuesday were not successful.
The purchase agreement, which The Post obtained through a public records request, includes several requirements negotiated between the buyer and the DHA.
By late 2027, it requires River Oak to find a site within a 1-mile radius of that property, at 988 Osage Street, to build the mandated housing units. At least half of them must be income-restricted for a minimum of 50 years, creating housing exclusively for households that earn 60 to 80% of Denver’s area median income. The vast majority of those units are required to have two or more bedrooms.
River Oak then will have more than three additional years to finish building the apartment project.
The agreement came after hundreds of pages of negotiation emails between the housing authority and Lea Ann Fowler, according to BusinessDen. The Post has reported that Fowler, a Hogan Lovells lawyer, has handled several other recent transactions involving Broncos-connected entities in the area.
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“Our intention is not to be punitive to your client but rather to protect DHA’s interest in guaranteeing that housing will actually be built and being able to take the property back if your client fails to deliver,” Erin Clark, chief real estate investment officer at DHA, reportedly told Fowler last July.
Clark and Fowler agreed in the emails to use only the team’s vague-sounding LLC in public meetings, according to BusinessDen.
The land that River Oak purchased is located southeast of the corner of 10th Avenue and Osage Street. It’s just down the street from the Denver Housing Authority’s headquarters and some of its own apartment buildings, several of them built in recent years.
Under the purchase agreement, River Oak is restricted to building retail, restaurants, housing, offices, a hotel or transit-oriented businesses on the site, along with a mix of uses. It can’t build certain things like adult stores, a tattoo parlor, a car wash or a massage parlor.
Stadium projects in recent years have often included related mixed-use entertainment districts, potentially making the purchase compatible with a possible new home for the Broncos nearby.
The Denver Housing Authority also will have a seat at the table in negotiations for any community benefits agreement, or CBA, that involves the Osage property, according to the sale agreement. The authority lays out certain requirements for a CBA, including community engagement, investment in improvements to the area near the 10th and Osage light rail station, local hiring for construction and a commitment to “community-serving and accessible uses.”
If River Oak is unable to find a site for the new required housing, the DHA would have the right to repurchase the property for $6 million, the sale agreement says.
Staff writer Luca Evans contributed to this story.
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