Residents of the La Alma Lincoln Park neighborhood had questions about the potential for a new Broncos stadium to be built in their backyard.
What would the environmental impacts be? Would one of the oldest, most historic neighborhoods in the city be paved over in favor of parking lots? How might a stadium impact the artists and small businesses in the Santa Fe Arts District? Would families be displaced? Could the community negotiate with the Broncos to also construct affordable housing, social services or food locations?
A neighborhood rich in history and conditioned to fight for their right to safeguard it is again gearing up to defend the La Alma Lincoln Park community from progress that forsakes preservation. This time, their guard is up as Burnham Yard, the state-owned former railroad yard in the area, is under consideration to accommodate a new stadium for the Denver Broncos to replace Empower Field at Mile High as the expiration of the team’s lease approaches in early 2031.
The fate of the parcel of the land remains unclear, but residents want to ensure their voices are at the table to guide its development. So far, they’re left with a lot of unanswered questions.
The La Alma Lincoln Park Neighborhood Association board members wanted answers as much as the residents posing inquiries.
“They bought this land in secret, and we just want to learn more,” said Nolan Hahn, president of the La Alma Lincoln Park Neighborhood Association, during a Wednesday evening neighborhood association meeting.
Hahn was referencing the Broncos-affiliated limited liability corporations that have snapped up properties surrounding Burnham Yard.
Broncos spokesperson Patrick Smyth said while they have not received outreach from specific neighborhoods, the organization is engaged with representatives on a city level as they figure out the future of their stadium.
“We’ve had several positive and productive conversations with representatives from Denver, Lone Tree and Aurora as we explore the potential options for the future of our stadium,” Smyth said in a statement. “When there is a determination, we look forward to proactively and transparently engaging with all key community constituents.”
Connie Buckley has lived in the area for 30 years. The 82-year-old said she’s used to her neighborhood being overruled.
“Who knows what the heck they’re doing?” Buckley said of the stadium. “It’s got to be bad if they’re keeping it a secret. For God’s sake, people have basic rights and needs, and they need to be cared for and attended to and listened to and respected and this secret crap — that’s so wrong. Maybe they just thought they could hoodwink everybody in the neighborhood. They wouldn’t treat the people in Wash Park like this.”
History repeats
La Alma Lincoln Park is one of the oldest neighborhoods in Denver. It has one of the greatest concentrations of homes built before 1890 and historical significance as the heart of the city’s Chicano movement, said John Deffenbaugh, CEO of Historic Denver.
The Auraria neighborhood next-door is technically Denver’s oldest. The working-class, largely Latino community was razed by the city in the 1970s to build the Auraria campus. Hundreds of Colorado families were displaced.
The La Alma Lincoln Park neighborhood extends from Colfax Avenue below the Auraria college campus to Sixth Avenue to Speer Boulevard, bordered by the South Platte River.
Neighbors described the community as tight-knit — the kind of place where block parties still happen and people know each other’s names — with a combination of generational families and newcomers and mixed incomes.
Historic Denver worked with La Alma for years to receive a historic cultural district designation in 2021, honoring its storied past.
The community has a legacy of activism that continues to this day, said Lucha Martínez de Luna, curator of Latino history and culture at History Colorado.
Martínez de Luna was born in the projects of La Alma Lincoln Park. Her father, notable artist Emanuel Martinez, was a muralist pioneer active in Colorado’s Crusade for Justice, an organization established in the 1960s that advocated for Chicano civil rights.
She started the Chicano/a/x Murals of Colorado Project to preserve the state’s historic murals like her father’s, housed in La Alma.
“This news about the potential stadium — it’s like don’t you ever give up?” Martínez de Luna said. “Don’t you ever give us a break? I can’t believe they’re thinking about doing that especially because they already have a stadium. We’re always talking about wastefulness. Why do we always have to erase things and build something else?”
Burnham Yard, the 58-acre property of interest to the Broncos, was a railway yard before Colorado became a state, Deffenbaugh said.
“This is all incredibly important history,” Deffenbaugh said. “The neighborhood is very engaged and mobilized and worked with Historic Denver…to create that historic cultural district because they care deeply about their community…and that’s reflected in the work they’ve done.”
‘Victimized by progress’
Jason Torrez, interim executive director at La Alma community nonprofit Denver Inner City Parish, said the neighborhood being bigfooted was “par for the course.”
The parish — which isn’t religiously affiliated but offers food pantries, senior resources, immigration services and education programs — frequently serves people who once called La Alma Lincoln Park home but have been pushed out as housing costs grew unattainable, Torrez said.
“You hear a lot of people come through the food pantry line and say their family grew up here and now they live in Aurora or Westminster,” Torrez said. “So many Latino families have been displaced over generations.”
Torrez worried a stadium would uproot more families with people pressured to sell their homes and potential housing price increases.
“What people don’t understand is that there are two sides to the story and sometimes those that are victimized by progress don’t get to share those stories,” Torrez said.
Neighborhood association president Hahn acknowledged that the prospects of a stadium came with concerns and excitement.
“There are things that could come out of this that are good and the potential for harms, as well,” Hahn said. “We are trying to make sure we’re in those conversations so we can get as much of the good stuff and as little of the bad.”
Good stuff that could be added, Hahn said, might be more reliable, accessible transit options. Bad stuff would be huge parking lots, he said.
“Our best case scenario is that the Broncos come work with the community around them…making sure that their vision aligns with the needs of the neighborhood and that they understand the potential costs and harms that come with it and try to mitigate it as much as possible,” Hahn said.
Hahn said the neighborhood association has asked City Councilwoman Jamie Torres to broker a meeting with the Broncos for about a year as rumors of the stadium circulated. Councilwoman Torres told The Denver Post she hadn’t asked the Broncos to speak to the neighborhood because the team wasn’t set on their site yet. She didn’t want to “jump the gun,” she said.
Regardless of whether it’s a stadium, Torres said something will be developed on Burnham Yard no matter what.
“I’m trying to brace, along with my constituents, how to best position themselves to understand what that is — to identify things that need to be built collaboratively or considered,” Torres said. “I don’t ever want residents to feel like they’ve been left behind and had no participation opportunities in the conversation. I don’t want what we’ve seen in other parts of the city where a neighborhood identity is disappeared and something else is put in its place. La Alma Lincoln Park has a really beautiful history. This should be added to and not separated from.”
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