For nearly a century, Colorado’s Monfort family has cashed in on the right idea at the right time and place.
So it is with Coors Field, a publicly funded stadium that became a gold mine for one of the state’s most famous families.
The $tadium Game
Part I: Amid another nationwide stadium boom, will Broncos build new home to land what Rockies have and what Nuggets, Avs are getting?
Part II: Is Coors Field the model for publicly financed stadium success? How the Monforts struck gold in LoDo.
Part III: Ball Arena was always window into downtown Denver land development for Stan Kroenke
Part IV: New Broncos stadium? Inside the what, where and when for a decision.
The 30-year-old ballpark at 20th and Blake and its historic neighborhood combined to create a lucrative setting that any sports team owner would covet.
Coors has hosted two All-Star Games, outdoor hockey and multiple concerts. It’s become a prime tourist attraction on perfect summer nights and has drawn more than 84 million baseball fans since opening its gates April 26, 1995.
This is despite being home to a Rockies team that has posted just nine winning seasons and made the playoffs five times in 32 years.
“I think we get an A-plus,” said former Denver Mayor Federico Peña, who took office in 1983, pushed hard to bring Major League Baseball to Denver and lobbied for the LoDo stadium site. “The entire community, from the citizens who supported it to the architects and those who designed it to those who selected the site, everyone involved. It’s an A-plus compared to other fields around the country.”
In many ways, Coors Field is the blueprint for successful pro sports ownership in the 21st century — a franchise profiting from a venue in a vibrant neighborhood that taps into multiple revenue streams and sustains the entire enterprise year-round.
The Monforts have prospered by attracting millions to Coors each year and developing real estate adjacent to the ballpark that operates as both a profit driver and a funding mechanism for future stadium improvements and maintenance.
In doing so, they’ve ensured the long-term viability of Coors for years to come — with taxpayers’ help.
The third-oldest ballpark in the National League behind Chicago’s Wrigley Field (opened in 1914) and Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles (1962), Coors has been well-maintained under primary owner Dick Monfort’s stewardship. While other contemporary stadiums are built, demolished and forgotten, Monfort, whose sons Walker and Sterling play key roles in the organization, can envision the Rockies calling Coors home for many more decades to come.
“That is my hope,” he said. “I said when we signed the lease extension (in 2017) that my hope would be to keep it up and have it be a grand old baseball stadium.”
Cyclists pass by a surveyor working at the intersection of 20th and Blake outside the construction site of Coors Field on June 2, 1994. (Photo by Jerry Cleveland/The Denver Post)
Stadiums as economic drivers
So, does that make Coors Field a good investment for the taxpayers who funded its construction?
Economists have long maintained that publicly funded stadiums are a poor use of tax money, more apt to shift entertainment dollars from one neighborhood to another than produce economic gains for host cities.
“I have been to LoDo and I think it’s a fantastic area and Coors Field is a great ballpark, but the economic impact is limited,” J.R. Bradbury, a professor of economics, finance and quantitative analysis at Kennesaw State University, said. “A new stadium spreads residents’ dollars around, but it doesn’t necessarily create new dollars.”
Bradbury co-authored a 2023 study that found that between 1970 and 2020, state and local governments devoted $33 billion in public funds to construct major-league sports venues in the United States and Canada.
The study found that the public share of construction costs for sports venues declined from 70% in the 1990s and 2000s to approximately half in the 2010s. Meanwhile, public money has risen, from a median of $168 million per stadium in the 1990s to $350 million in the 2010s and $500 million in the 2020s.
And over the last 50 years, the value of Major League Baseball franchises has soared. One example: The Seattle Pilots sold for $10.8 million in 1970 to future MLB commissioner Bud Selig. In March, Forbes valued that same team (now the Milwaukee Brewers) at $1.6 billion, still below the median worth of an MLB franchise ($2.025 billion).
Peña argues economics isn’t the only consideration when investing public money in a stadium that benefits the owners.
“There are times when taxpayer support for a major economic asset, as well as something that adds to the overall culture and the well-being of a city, is needed,” Peña said. “You can’t measure the happiness that that brings to the community.”
Coors Field can be seen in the background as the Ballpark Lofts went up at Broadway and Walnut, featuring over 300 rental lofts and two courtyards, in this file photo from Nov. 19, 2001. (Photo by Cyrus McCrimmon/The Denver Post)
To bring Major League Baseball to Denver, the league required construction of a baseball-only stadium. The Colorado Baseball Partnership’s pitch to voters was simple: The ballpark cost would be “a penny on a purchase of 10 dollars.”
In August 1990, voters in Adams, Arapahoe, Boulder, Denver, Douglas and Jefferson counties approved a 0.1% sales tax to help fund the $215 million ballpark. That provided $168 million, or 78% of the cost. The remaining $48 million came from the original Rockies owners.
Although Denver and Adams County voters rejected the tax, the measure won with strong support from the suburbs.
The original plan was for the Coors Field bonds to be paid off in 20 years, but a healthy economy and lower interest rates meant debt was paid off in just under 10 years.
Since then, multiple baseball stadiums built around the same time have been replaced. In Texas, the Rangers opened The Ballpark in Arlington in 1994, only to leave it for a retractable dome 25 years later. The Atlanta Braves moved into Turner Field in 1997 and were gone in less than 20 years. The Chicago White Sox want to build a new home on the city’s South Side using $1 billion in taxpayer dollars after moving into what is now Guaranteed Rate Field in 1991.
But Coors Field endures.
“I’m extremely proud of that and proud of all of those who have made this ballpark what it is, kept it relevant and kept it a place to be after all of these years, despite the wins and losses,” said Kevin Kahn, the Rockies’ longtime vice president of baseball operations.
Project engineer Charles Arnold stands in a corner condo unit overlooking the city, including Coors Field, amid construction work at the Crossing at Denargo Market, a 321-unit building, on Jan. 12, 2016. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)
A bright future ahead
Thanks to the investments in and around the ballpark, the Monforts have plenty of motivation to stick with the venue long-term.
The family fortune began not with baseball, but with beef. In 1930, Warren Monfort founded Monfort Colorado Inc., pioneering the feedlot concept in the beef industry. His son, Kenneth, moved meat packing plants to where his cattle were raised and saw profits soar. In 1950, the company had $1 million in annual sales and 1,000 head of cattle. When he sold the business to ConAgra for $300 million in 1987, the cattle company was one of Greeley’s largest employers and one of the world’s largest beef operations.
The Monfort brothers eased into ownership of the Rockies.
Colorado Rockies owner Dick Monfort welcomes fans for the opening day game against the Tampa Bay Rays at Coors Field in Denver on April 5. (Photo by Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post)
In 1992, the franchise’s initial ownership group, which included Charlie as a limited partner, paid $95 million to field an expansion team. In 2005, third-generation Dick and Charlie bought out original owner Jerry McMorris for an estimated $20 million and gained controlling interest in the franchise. The Monfort brothers own about 64% of the team, according to Dick Monfort.
Now, the franchise is worth $1.47 billion, according to the latest Forbes estimates. And the fourth generation of Monforts has plans to make the area around the ballpark Denver’s most vibrant entertainment district and a national destination.
“Ultimately, the vision is to continue to provide development and services in a way that allows the (neighborhoods) to thrive seven days a week and 365 days a year, and not just when baseball games are occurring,” said 32-year-old Kenny Monfort, Charlie’s son and the executive vice president of Monfort Companies, a Colorado-based development company that’s invested in neighborhoods around Coors.
Kenny believes he’ll hit a home run by developing properties in the area. He’s already invested in three.
In 2019, he and his partners bought LoDo’s Bar and developed it into Dierks Bentley’s Whiskey Row. Monfort sold the real estate in March of 2022 for $24 million but still owns the business in partnership with Riot Hospitality.
In November 2022, the same day that Monfort Companies and Riot Hospitality broke ground on Riot House in downtown Denver, the group announced it had purchased the famed former jazz club El Chapultepec and the Giggling Grizzly on the corner of 20th and Market streets. Total cost: $5.38 million.
The El Chapultepec project, involving a major renovation of a historic building, must get the OK from the Landmark Preservation Committee and Lower Downtown Design Review Commission. It has yet to break ground.
It is part of the big dreams Monfort, a University of Denver graduate, has for the neighborhood.
“It can be something that competes with Nashville or (Chicago’s) Wrigleyville or any of these other entertainment districts around the country,” he said. “It has the bones, and the infrastructure, and the opportunity to become that. Fundamentally, from a business standpoint, that’s exciting.”
McGregor Square under construction across from Coors Field on Nov. 13, 2019. (Photo by Andy Cross/The Denver Post)
The crown jewel
The most ambitious of Dick Monfort’s plans took root in March 2017 when the club struck an “eleventh-hour deal” that led to the development of McGregor Square.
After four years of negotiation, the Rockies agreed to a $200 million, 30-year lease with the Metropolitan Baseball Stadium District, the state division that owns Coors Field. In exchange, the Rockies leased and developed a valuable plot of state land directly south of the stadium for 99 years. For that, the team paid the district $125 million.
According to city records, the West Lot property was valued at more than $10 million at the time of the deal. The investors’ $125 million lease for the land required the team to pay the stadium district $7.5 million a year in rent through 2022, $5 million a year for 15 years after that, $1.25 million for 10 years, and finally $100 a year for the final 69 years.
A study by the University of Maryland’s Colvin Institute of Real Estate Development estimated McGregor Square, which opened in 2021, cost $365 million.
Today, the project includes 12 restaurants and bars, five retail outlets and the 182-room Rally Hotel. It also has 103 condominiums and 200,000 square feet of office space. The centerpiece is a 17,000-square-foot plaza with a stadium-sized LED screen.
When it opened in 2021, Monfort told The Denver Post that the Rockies and McGregor Square were separate entities. Still, the baseball team and the Monforts’ investments are intrinsically linked.
One of the stated reasons for the agreement with the stadium district was to provide funds for the upkeep of Coors Field. Of course, McGregor Square is also a profit driver for investors.
A Denver Post public records review found that 89 McGregor Square condominiums sold to buyers outside the Monfort family for $122.9 million between 2021 and 2022. In addition, the Colvin Institute estimates annual net operating income of $7.94 million from the office space, $6.92 million from the hotel, $2.29 million from the retail space, and $595,000 from parking.
Looking ahead
Beyond the investment potential, there are many reasons why the brick venue at 20th and Blake is likely to remain a Colorado landmark — not the least of which is its aesthetic beauty.
This year, it won the “25-Year Award” from the Colorado Chapter of the American Institute of Architects.
“The award goes to a building that has stood the test of time and is still being used for its original purpose and had an extraordinary impact on the Colorado architectural environment,” chapter president Scott Rodwin said. “Like Oriole Park at Camden Yards, Coors set itself in the heart of the urban environment instead of in a sea of parking lots.
“… The design fits into the historic nature of the neighborhood. It’s reminiscent of ballparks like Fenway Park in Boston, Wrigley Field in Chicago or Ebbets Field in Brooklyn.”
Even as Coors remains a callback to another era, it continues to evolve. Leading up to the new lease agreement in 2017, the district and the Rockies each commissioned studies that estimated capital improvements over the next 30 years — everything from sewer lines to new seats to internet access — would cost $200 million.
The owners, not the city and county of Denver or the stadium district, are primarily responsible for maintaining and improving Coors Field, which covers more than 1 million square feet.
“The stadium district still has the responsibility of representing the taxpayers and making sure that the team is ‘operating in a first-class manner,’” Kahn said. “That is the language in the lease.”
One of the most significant renovations came in 2014 with the opening of The Rooftop. What fans commonly call “The Party Deck” replaced a seldom-used area in the right-field stands with a $10 million, two-level, standing-room-only bar and restaurant area.
The concept was later incorporated into venues throughout the country as owners sought to make their stadiums entertainment hot spots rather than simply homes for baseball teams.
Once again, Dick Monfort was ahead of the curve.
“We try to be all things to all people,” he said when The Rooftop opened. “This is just another dimension.”
Colorado Rockies fans celebrate opening day at Coors Field in Denver on April 8, 2022. (Photo by Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post)
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