The Broncos and Denver Mayor Mike Johnston’s office last year made inquiries about the use of urban-renewal tax incentives as the team explores a potential new stadium site at Burnham Yard, a city official confirmed to The Denver Post.
Denver Urban Renewal Authority executive director Tracy Huggins said the Broncos and the mayor’s office held preliminary conversations with DURA in 2024 about the process of obtaining tax-increment financing for redevelopment.
Those conversations were “very limited,” Huggins said, but the parties specifically mentioned Burnham Yard, the industrial area near La Alma Lincoln Park that has drawn increasing buzz as a possible landing spot for a new Broncos stadium.
“There were, in total, maybe three conversations,” Huggins said. “Again, (it was) both the city and the Broncos just really wanting to understand what would it mean, and how we would do it.”
Huggins said her last conversation on the subject came in January, when she spoke to Bill Mosher, Johnston’s chief projects officer, who has been regularly involved in stadium conversations with the Broncos.
No specific plan was discussed, Huggins said, beyond simple inquiries into how the practice works. The Broncos have acknowledged only that they’re evaluating several potential new stadium sites in Denver, Lone Tree and Aurora.
Inquiries into the use of tax-increment financing, or TIF, for urban-renewal purposes are common, Huggins said. Once a property is deemed “blighted” under Colorado state statute, DURA can designate the area for an urban-renewal plan and issue bonds for redevelopment that would go toward infrastructure or environmental costs, along with public improvements.
The financing would involve borrowing against the expected growth in sales or property tax revenue (or both) attributable to redevelopment of the property. TIF authorization typically includes setting a time limit for the diversion of the tax money, with the Denver City Council weighing in.
It’s unlikely that any Broncos stadium redevelopment would rely on a large sum of public money, as the Walton-Penner group is widely regarded as the richest ownership group in the NFL. Still, Burnham Yard appears to be a prime site for tax-increment urban renewal, if selected by the Broncos.
“I think, of any of the places that I’ve seen a lot of urban renewal applications come through, this deeply qualifies,” Denver City Councilwoman Jamie Torres said of Burnham Yard. “It is abandoned, it is kind of an old utilization that needs to be completely renovated for new residential, commercial utilization. That’s pretty clear. How much, what it covers, I think, stand to be huge conversations.”
The discussions with DURA represent more breadcrumbs in an increasingly public trail connecting the Broncos to Burnham Yard, as The Post has reported that entities connected to the franchise have paid more than $150 million since August to snap up properties around the 58-acre railyard site and has engaged in discussions with Denver Water over the utility’s nearby 36-acre campus. A business entity connected to the team also paid $7 million to the Denver Housing Authority to snap up a vacant lot just east of Burnham Yard.
“As we continue a comprehensive analysis of potential options in Denver, Lone Tree and Aurora, we’re engaging thoughtfully and reviewing all considerations as part of our ongoing process,” Broncos spokesman Patrick Smyth said.
Kennesaw State University economics professor J.C. Bradbury, who has long studied the economics of sports-stadium subsidies, said the Broncos’ TIF inquiries indicate the ownership is “absolutely serious” about Burnham Yard. And it’s another example of the push from Johnston’s office to keep the Broncos in Denver, exploring potential incentives for the team to redevelop in the city.
Asked Tuesday about the possibility of using TIF for a new Broncos stadium, and about the Broncos’ interest in Burnham Yard, Johnston didn’t directly answer, but told The Post he would have “more to say in the week to come on this.”
“I really believe in the vision and the values of the new ownership of the team,” he said. “I’ve said since I ran, ‘Over my dead body do the Broncos leave Denver.’ And so I’m committed to that today, and I feel like we have a chance to do something special and we’re going to work hard at it to get it done.
“And I feel like we’re close, but I think that’s all I can say now.”
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The Broncos’ current home, Empower Field at Mile High, was originally built as Invesco Field in 2001 after the team’s late former owner, Pat Bowlen, launched a massive public campaign to approve a sales tax increase. Ultimately, taxpayers subsidized close to three-quarters of the eventual $400 million in stadium costs.
In the years since, a variety of NFL organizations have relied on less-sizeable but still substantial public funding to construct increasingly expensive stadiums, from the Atlanta Falcons’ Mercedes-Benz Stadium to the Las Vegas Raiders’ Allegiant Stadium.
TIF is still a form of public subsidy, but it isn’t the same as a direct increase in taxes. Tax-increment financing anticipates increases in tax revenues from development projects and applies it on the front end to specific costs of those developments, rather than those taxes going directly to the city.
The Denver Urban Renewal Authority is also engaged in TIF discussions involving the stadium planned for a new National Women’s Soccer League franchise at Santa Fe Yards. A TIF plan had been approved for redevelopment of the larger surrounding site before the city struck a deal with the owners to locate the stadium there.
“That, I think, was a surprise for some of my council colleagues to remember — when we have a TIF in place, they keep all of their property and sales taxes,” Torres said, speaking on the potential of multiple future stadium-district developments in Denver. “Like, it is retained there. So you’re thinking about this in much longer scales than just the next 20, 25 years.
“And so that, I think, is really important for us,” she continued. “There’s an identity piece, around the Denver Broncos, that — if they’re not in Denver, they’re not the Denver Broncos.”
If the Broncos decide to remain planted in Denver, and to build at Burnham Yard, the team would have a relatively clear initial pathway to tax-increment financing through urban renewal. The railyard, which lies just east of Interstate 25 and the South Platte River, is a historic site that’s been closed for nearly a decade. There would be a “pretty good likelihood” that the area would be deemed blighted, Huggins said.
Under Colorado statute, blighted properties are areas that are hazardous to public health, impede housing and aggravate traffic problems, among several other factors.
Once a property is declared blighted, DURA then studies whether there’s a need for public investment in the redevelopment, Huggins said, involving negotiations with ownership over costs and an eventual public hearing in front of Denver’s council.
Denver Post staff writer Elliott Wenzler contributed to this story.
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