Before the industrial age, before railyards and steam plants and I-25 melded a concrete jungle around a polluted river, the South Platte was the genesis of Denver.
The riverbanks were mined for gold. The river itself was used for irrigation for farmlands. For over a century, a cycle of neglect and refurbishment has flowed through the currents. Members of the Denver City Council formed the South Platte River Committee last year, dedicated to properly review all legislation impacting a long stretch of property lining the rushing heart of the city.
The council took action, as Councilwoman Jamie Torres said, because they knew what was coming. The future of development, in Denver, lies in the ripe hundreds of acres along this snaking corridor.
“It can be revitalized,” Torres told The Denver Post, “in ways that we’ve not seen it in our own lifetime.”
In a town dominated by fandom, a mix of sports ownership groups has now planted their flag at various stops along the Platte. Start with Coors Field, the centerpiece of LoDo. Continue a mile down the river, where Kroenke Sports & Entertainment is investing in the sprawling River Mile district and a new-look entertainment redevelopment around Ball Arena. Down I-25, owners of a new NWSL franchise plan to integrate a new soccer stadium with an entertainment complex at Santa Fe Yards. And a heap of evidence points to the Broncos’ interest in a new stadium site at Burnham Yard, with the franchise connected to a string of land purchases around the railyard in the past year.
But between plans for Ball Arena and a new NWSL team, and the possibility of Broncos redevelopment at Burnham, that’s three potential stadium districts in a constricted five-mile radius — not even including Coors in LoDo. The issue for Denver is whether enough demand exists to properly support so many sports-anchored developments in such a tight space.
“It is a boon,” Torres said. “It is also kind of blasting open the doors for everybody else’s interests as well. And that can happen — that can kind of steamroll community, in a lot of ways that makes me really worried.”
Clustering such districts, as Riverfront Park Homeowners Association president Don Cohen put it, could theoretically boost foot traffic and tax revenue in the area. But many experts are concerned that overlapping amenities could sap benefits to Denver — and inflate housing costs for surrounding communities.
“I think this is monumentally important,” said Brad Segal, president of Denver planning firm Progressive Urban Management Associates, “to the future of the city.”
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In the past couple of years, the Broncos’ quest for the next-best stadium fit has taken them to inspections of sports entertainment districts across the country. They’ve been to Wrigleyville, the ballpark district around Wrigley Field in Chicago. They’ve been to Hollywood Park, the KSE-owned district around the Rams’ gleaming SoFi Stadium.
Owner Greg Penner even tagged along on a trip to see The Battery Atlanta — the staple area around Atlanta’s new Truist Park.
What they’ve seen: The trend of a stadium surrounded by a “sea of asphalt surface parking,” as president Damani Leech said, is going away. Replaced, now, by the idea of a sports-anchored community.
Mike Neary, KSE’s executive VP of business operations and real estate, believes the numerous plans for stadium districts “show how bullish the market is on the future of Denver.”
“We have seen with comparable highly desirable mixed-use projects, including our own in other cities, that when these districts are anchored by pro sports venues, they create their own high demand,” Neary said.
The country is on the cusp of seeing more mid-size cities like Denver incorporate multiple mixed-use destinations. Take Oklahoma City, which has approved plans to both redevelop the land around the OKC Thunder’s current arena and build an adjacent district around a new NWSL stadium.
Between the potential for developments at Ball Arena, River Mile and Burnham Yard, though, it’s a “little unusual” for districts of that size and scale to be grouped so close to downtown business districts, Segal pointed out. And Segal, who’s worked in economic development and seen the evolution of downtown Denver for 40 years, is concerned about the potential for districts along the Platte to redirect economic traffic away from LoDo.
“Are we cannibalizing and further weakening downtown Denver?” Segal said. “Not only with Ball Arena — but with Kroenke controlling both Ball Arena and River Mile, that is an incredible amount of development capacity.”
Community leaders touched on that concept six years earlier, when the city first approved a now-stalled proposal for a mixed-use entertainment district around the Broncos’ current stadium site at Empower Field at Mile High. The master plan suggested concurrent growth with the Central Platte Valley-Auraria District, but it was specifically confined to an area west of I-25 around Mile High.
“To ensure that we’re not taking away from downtown Denver,” explained Andrew Abrams, who served on the Denver Planning Board, “and creating a second downtown.”
Sue Powers, who served on that original plan’s steering committee, suggested the concept of cannibalization wouldn’t be a concern with any new district near downtown due to the potential to attract more crowds closer to LoDo.
Homeowners association president Cohen said Riverfront Park’s community was “very comfortable” with planned development at Ball and surrounding areas.
“If River Mile ever gets off the ground,” Cohen said, “it’s just going to be a new playground.”
Still, others noted potential issues with this anticipated concentration of entertainment districts.
Carrie Makarewicz, chair of CU Denver’s Urban and Regional Planning Department, pointed to potential traffic congestion on limited arterials and roadways, particularly I-25. The RTD’s E Line runs directly through Ball, Burnham Yard and Santa Fe Yards, which would connect development through public transit and reduce traffic. But public RTD data shows total light rail boardings have declined yearly since 2022.
Another consideration for policymakers, as former City Councilwoman Robin Kniech told The Post, is the potential for multiple tax-increment financing districts. The large NWSL stadium site by Broadway and I-25 has already been approved for TIF, and the Broncos have inquired about the process of urban-renewal TIF as connected to Burnham Yard.
That would mean two stadium districts in the span of four miles would generate tax revenue that didn’t actually go toward the city, and instead went back into project development costs.
In total, it all paints an unclear picture of how much actual economic growth several clustered stadium districts could bring to Denver.
“I do think this is a huge concern,” Kniech said, “about the viability of that much mixed-use development.”
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In 2010, Denver’s Department of Community Planning and Development released an 88-page document outlining a long-term vision for La Alma Lincoln Park, a culturally rich neighborhood that was forever transformed in the 1970s when families were displaced to build the Auraria campus.
The Burnham Yard site, which lies adjacent to La Alma Lincoln Park, was largely incorporated as a massive question mark.
“Redevelopment of the Burnham Yard is considered to be long-term and beyond the horizon of this Plan,” read a note on one map.
The railyard hasn’t been in active use since 2016. Still, as Torres said, zero planning guidance exists.
“Even back then, folks knew something else is going to happen here,” Torres said. “And we won’t know what that is yet.”
In September 2024, according to records obtained by The Post, Denver Urban Renewal Authority redevelopment manager Mike Guertin emailed preliminary examples around the process of creating a “Special Improvement District” to a host of constituents. One was Broncos chief financial officer Justin Webster. Another was Gus Dossett, a sports real estate specialist with the firm JLL and an expert in large-scale development projects.
“TBD on whether we request City staff to calculate the current sales tax base for the site,” Guertin wrote in an email. That “site” was specifically referring to Burnham Yard.
Leech told The Post that there was “no news to report” regarding any stadium decision-making, and that the Broncos are trying to navigate the process with “thoughtfulness and respect” to their longer-term future. He said the Broncos and the Walton-Penner ownership group are committed to understanding the surrounding area of any new stadium development.
“In some places, it’s a new development where that’s growing along with you,” Leech said. “In other places, it’s a 100-plus-year-old community that a development is being built within. And in both of those cases, it’s important to talk to the community members and understand what’s important to them.”
A wide range of Denver experts noted the importance of building out local stadium districts with “community-serving uses,” as Makarewicz said, such as rec centers or parks.
In 2024, KSE signed an extensive community-benefits agreement with a committee of local leaders that provided guarantees in the Ball Arena redevelopment for minority-owned contracted businesses, accessibility to parks and investments in local arts and culture. Notably, the committee negotiated for 18% of all connected housing units to be affordable. The NWSL stadium design at Santa Fe Yards includes plans to improve an eastern flank of Vanderbilt Park.
La Alma Lincoln Park community leader Simon Tafoya, who served as the co-chair of that Ball Arena CBA, hopes any Broncos mixed-use development at Burnham would spark discussion around affordable housing and education opportunities. And Tafoya noted there was “an immense amount of value” to any developer engaging the community as KSE did with the Ball CBA.
“We have a couple CBA groups that we can be learning from,” Torres said, in relation to development at Burnham Yard. “I’m trying to get La Alma Lincoln Park residents ready for those same conversations.”
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Experts see community advocacy as particularly important, given the sheer amount of real-estate power that Denver’s adopted royal families are amassing.
With KSE’s investment into River Mile and the Broncos’ nibblings at Burnham near the 36-acre Denver Water campus, the two billionaire groups — intertwined by family connections — could end up owning over 200 acres of land down the South Platte corridor.
“I mean, where in the United States of America do you have one frickin’ family controlling half of a center city’s land development?” said Segal. “It’s wild.”
A mixed-use district at Burnham Yard and a mixed-use district at Ball Arena could overlap in consumer demographics. Makarewicz suggested it’d make sense, if the Broncos settled at Burnham, for KSE and the Walton-Penner Group to sign a memorandum of understanding around separate community-serving uses for their respective districts.
KSE and the Walton-Penner group, of course, are linked: Stan Kroenke is married to Ann Walton Kroenke, the cousin of longtime former Walmart chairman Rob Walton.
“Whether they coordinate that because they have family connections, or they coordinate that because they’re somewhat market-driven … it’ll happen,” Powers said.
“I mean, they’re watching each other every day, and they know what the other one’s doing.”
Each project along this I-25 stretch faces its own issues. The NWSL franchise’s stadium plan at Santa Fe Yards is contingent on public investment. The Ball Arena redevelopment will require solving floodplain issues, which Powers said could be a “huge undertaking.” And the Broncos would have several hoops to jump through with Denver Water and environmental issues around Burnham if they settle there.
But a swell in mixed-use stadium districts looms on the Rocky Mountain horizon. And redevelopment promises to transform communities up and down the Platte, for boom or for bust.
“Cautiously optimistic,” Tafoya said, describing his attitude to the expected growth. “With a healthy dose of skepticism.”
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