The Colorado Constitution guarantees just compensation for any real estate acquired for a public use and allows owners to challenge whether a use is truly public. Statutes were tightened even more in 2006, with limits barring the use of eminent domain to claim property for economic development purposes or to boost tax revenues.

In short, when land is taken, it must be for genuine public uses, not as a workaround to benefit a private entity.

That matters because Denver Water has sent out “notices of intent” for nearly two dozen properties near its 36-acre campus, which is adjacent to Burnham Yard, a 58-acre site owned by the Colorado Department of Transportation. That former railroad yard, being prepared for sale, is considered a leading candidate for a new football stadium that the Denver Broncos are considering.

But land is also needed for surrounding developments like bars, restaurants, hotels and housing. Sports teams increasingly want to control those assets and profit from them, which requires a much larger footprint in the past.

“Different property owners are responding differently. We figured there was no reason not to go ahead and get an appraisal,” said Adam Foster, an attorney representing the owners of 1245 N. Umatilla St., which was among the properties between 12th and 14th avenues and between I-25 and Shoshone Street that received notices.

Denver Water has been fairly vague in explaining why it needs the land and what it intends to do with it, Foster said, adding that “At this time, we are taking them at their word that it is for a public process.”

The Broncos said the team has studied locating a new stadium in Denver, Aurora and Lone Tree. But since August, proxy companies tied to the team have purchased at least 13 parcels near Burnham Yard and made sellers sign nondisclosure agreements. That suggests the location south of the current stadium and on a light rail line is the leading candidate.

Even with those purchases, the Broncos still need some land from Denver Water’s campus next door to Burnham Yard, and the two sides have been discussing the matter for more than a year via frequent meetings.

“At this time, Denver Water is just exploring some voluntary acquisitions of properties near our Operations Complex to meet future operational needs. There are no set plans, as we are only evaluating potential options for the future,” said Travis Thompson, a communications manager with Denver Water.

Denver Water hasn’t acknowledged that it will need the parcels, which cover approximately 18 acres, to replace land it may sell to the Denver Broncos. And it has repeatedly emphasized the “voluntary” aspect of its purchase requests, which in the case of the Latino Cultural Arts Center’s Las Bodegas campus at 1935 W. 12th Ave. resulted in a rescinded offer to purchase its parcel.

Attorneys contacted said they expect the “notice of intent to acquire” letters that went out in April and May could eventually lead to a “petition for immediate possession” for owners who refuse the initial offer, which would start the formal eminent domain process.

“You have to send somebody that notice. It gives the landowner the chance to plan,” said Don Ostrander, an attorney with Hamre, Rodriguez, Ostrander & Prescott in Englewood who has worked on some of the state’s highest profile condemnation cases, including the assembly of land for Coors Field, RTD’s FasTracks project and E-470.

Appraisals are the next step. Denver Water has determined what it considers a fair value, and property owners are entitled to obtain an appraisal at the utility’s expense, essentially a second opinion.

“Most of the properties will be acquired through negotiation, but not all of them,” Ostrander said.

Owners near retirement, or who face costly repairs or clean-up to sell, or who aren’t up for a legal battle, may take an offer they find agreeable enough and call it a day. Others may push for a higher price or not want to sell.

Denver Water, despite the claim of everything being voluntary, has the ability to force a sale on those who refuse to reach terms, real estate attorneys said. Whether the utility has solid legal standing to do so is another matter.

“You can’t condemn property for an entity that doesn’t have the power to condemn,” Ostrander said. “They have to be careful about using it or they will put themselves at risk that someone says there isn’t a public purpose.”

A key question the courts may be asked to decide is if Denver Water would be acquiring the land in question absent a sale of land it currently owns to facilitate the development of a new stadium.

“The key issue comes down to whether this is for public infrastructure or deemed to benefit a private party. Colorado state law is pretty clear on that,” said Peter Towsky, a partner at Robinson & Henry in Highlands Ranch. “There is a potential trial awaiting each of these eminent domain takings.”

If Denver Water acquires land to replace land that will be sold to the Denver Broncos, a private party, it is violating Colorado’s rules on eminent domain actions, Towsky said.

“There are some seemingly legitimate questions that could be raised in a challenge over this,” he said. “The leverage lies with the property owners. If they challenge any of this in court, the public use aspect, that will delay things significantly.”

Richard B. Collins, an emeritus professor at the University of Colorado Law School and expert on eminent domain, however, said a judge could decline to link the two actions. Denver Water is within its rights to sell land it owns, and it can use eminent domain to acquire land that it needs.

“The courts could reject the claim by deeming the two parts of the plan as separate, so that Denver Water’s condemnations stand alone and are valid. The 2006 statute could be avoided by finding that the proposed scheme is not urban renewal,” he said.

Courts have been generous in defining what is of public purpose, and could declare that retaining the Broncos in Denver serves a public purpose, he said. And it will be hard to argue that Denver Water isn’t using the land it acquires for its campus, a public use.

“For these reasons, I think it likely that the courts would not invalidate the scheme. But I could be wrong,” he said.

Colorado tough on takings

Colorado tightened its standards on eminent domain after the Arvada Urban Renewal Authority used a blighted designation to claim a privately-owned and spring-fed lake that was popular with locals. The plan was to fill the lake in and use it as a truck turnaround for a new Walmart.

The Colorado Supreme Court ruled in 2004 that economic dissatisfaction didn’t justify taking private property and that the condemnation was not permissible under urban renewal laws. Private property advocates in the state sought stronger safeguards in 2005, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Kelo vs. City of New London that eminent domain could be used for economic development purposes.

The Colorado legislature in 2006 responded by passing a bill that prohibited takings solely for economic development purposes and required clear and convincing evidence of blight before private property can be condemned for redevelopment.

Retired Grand County Republican State Rep. Al White, a sponsor of that bill, said that Denver Water may be crossing a line if it resorts to eminent domain in a way that benefits the Broncos, who don’t have that power. Its approach is subtle, not flagrant, but in his view violates the protective intent of the legislation passed nearly two decades ago.

“If they go the eminent domain route to acquire property after selling to a private for-profit entity, that would seem to tip-toe across the line of what my bill was designed to do, i.e. prevent public takings for the benefit of private profit,” White said.

Aside from the public use argument, property owners could also challenge whether the price they are being offered is fair, the most common point of contention in eminent domain disputes.

BusinessDen in June reported that LLCs affiliated with the Denver Broncos assembled more than a dozen parcels near Burnham Yard. Some of the purchases carried premiums at two to three times the going rate of prior sales, which will make it harder for Denver Water to replace whatever land it gives up.

For example, Golden developer Jeff Shanahan paid $5.75 million for a building on 1.4 acres at 1530 W. 13th Ave. in March 2023. Backed by a loan from Denver, he planned to build affordable housing. But in January, an LLC affiliated with the Denver Broncos offered him more than double what he had paid — $12.5 million.

Owners want the “Broncos” price, not the “market” price that Denver Water calculated, and many are expected to hire appraisers to determine a value that reflects those purchases, sources familiar with the matter said.

Complicated land transactions involving multiple parcels typically have some holdouts, Ostrander said. That was the case with Coors Field, when Mary Siiro and the Cowperthwaite family fought hard to retain their parcels for as long as they could. The legislature restored eminent domain powers to sports districts, including the Denver Metropolitan Major League Baseball Stadium District, allowing the project to move forward.

The Broncos, however, are expected to independently fund any new project rather than using a stadium district. That puts them in a better position to control the surrounding development and avoid the complications of partnering with taxpayers. But it leaves them without a powerful tool to acquire land.

Denver Water could proceed on its current course and make any purchases without using its power of eminent domain, an approach White favors and one that would avoid a fight over public use. But it may have to pay more, which could trigger complaints that it is harming customers to benefit a sports franchise. Or the Denver Broncos, with their deeper pockets, could also step in, buy up the land, and arrange a swap.

Landowners who can find a way to hold out could realize substantially higher values in five to 10 years as the area redevelops, Towsky said. But if the Broncos find it too difficult to assemble the land needed, they may pursue other options, including staying at Empower Field’s current location.

Breaking up a campus

Burnham Yard is a brownfield site, and the contamination from decades spent as a railroad repair yard will need to be cleaned up. But the surrounding parcels, including the ones that Denver Water wants, aren’t officially blighted. They may not all look pretty, but aside from a few vacant lots and empty buildings slated to become apartments, most remain productively employed.

Tenants include HVAC and roofing contractors, a treatment center, a janitorial firm, a lighting supplier, an oil and gas company, and a distributor of trampolines. Most of the buildings were built in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, and a couple in the 1980s. The oldest, 1340 Umatilla St., dates to 1910.

“I suspect they will be successfully able to argue the case and purchase,” said Vivek Sah, director of the Franklin L. Burns School of Real Estate and Construction Management at the University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business, said of Denver Water’s efforts.

It is one thing if a public entity tried to condemn land in a productive area like Cherry Creek, and another in a tired industrial zone that could use a new lease on life. Too many interests are aligning in support of a new stadium at that location, Sah said.

Tenants typically receive assistance with moving expenses and owners, if they build a strong case on valuation, can likely achieve a price that works for them. Foster said the area, with or without a stadium, is changing rapidly and is ripe for redevelopment.

But owners and tenants alike will likely struggle to replace what they are giving up in terms of highway access, central location and lower cost. Many could find themselves pushed outside Denver city limits.

Denver Water also faces significant trade-offs if it splits up its contiguous campus and moves some of its operations into the surrounding neighborhood, where cross streets and traffic will reduce the privacy and undisturbed access it now enjoys.

“It would be difficult. It’s probably not ideal. But nothing is as ideal as where they are now,” said Jim Lochhead, former CEO of Denver Water from 2010 to 2023.

Building a unified campus cost more than $200 million and years of planning to pull off. The main headquarters was completed in December 2019, right ahead of the pandemic.

Letting it go will not be easy, but Lochhead also acknowledged that the stadium and the redevelopment of the surrounding area presents an important economic driver for Denver. A new stadium has become a top priority for Mayor Mike Johnston, and Gov. Jared Polis is involved in the talks to sell Burnham Yard.

“It would be too bad for Denver Water to give up that campus or a portion of that campus, but it’s something that I think is for the good of the community, as long as Denver Water is kept whole and its customers are kept whole,” he said.

Denver Post reporter Elliott Wenzler contributed to this report.

Average rents rose from $1,819 in the first quarter to $1,832 in the second, but remain down 3.7% over the past year and are still lower than they were in the second quarter of 2023. That contrasts with a 3.8% increase nationally over the past year period in rental costs, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“This increase is less than half of the typical increase during the second quarter over the past 20 years because vacancy remains elevated,” said Cary Bruteig, a researcher with Apartment Insights and author of the report, which is in its 45th year.

The overall vacancy rate fell from 7% in the first quarter to 6.4% in the second. A year ago, the share of unrented apartments was 5.6%. Vacancies were highest in Arapahoe and Denver counties at 7.1% and 7%, and lowest in Jefferson and Boulder counties, which were at 5.2%.

Some of that reflects the higher demand in the second quarter during the peak leasing season. But it also reflects a slowdown in the number of new apartments arriving. Over the past 12 months, there have been 15,798 new apartments added, but only 2,375 of those came in the second quarter.

As the pace of construction slows, demand, measured as the number of units occupied or absorption, has stayed strong. Over the past 12 months, there have been 11,184 apartments occupied, including 4,573 the second quarter.

“The number of apartments under construction has decreased by approximately a third from its peak in mid-2023,” Bruteig said. “This should lead to fewer new apartments completed in the quarters ahead.”

Bruteig estimates the oversupply situation will last through 2026, assuming absorption rates stay at around 11,000 a year. Slower migration and weaker job growth are two things that could weigh on apartment demand and extend the renter’s market.

New state and local regulations in many locales, especially Denver, which added an inclusionary housing ordinance to boost affordable housing, have combined with higher interest rates and construction costs to lower the number of multifamily starts, said Mark Williams, the association’s executive vice president.

Landlords continue to offer concessions to attract tenants. Those are averaging about 4.9% of gross rents, which is down slightly from earlier in the year. in dollar terms, landlords provided breaks worth about $90 a month on average.

The association’s survey was based on data from 248,812 apartment homes.

Denver’s Department of Housing Stability, or HOST, extended the loan, funded with federal American Rescue Plan dollars, in March 2023 to Shanahan for the purchase of 1530 W. 13th Ave. in the Lincoln Park neighborhood. In return, Shanahan agreed to construct 190 units affordable to renters or buyers making between 30% to 80% of the area median income under what is known as a rental and occupancy covenant.

Backed with the city loan, Shanahan paid $5.75 million for a building on 1.4 acres owned by Savio House, a nonprofit that provides family therapy, foster care placement and youth support. The nonprofit had purchased the location for $1.97 million in 2008 from the construction company G.H. Phipps, whose founder Gerald Phipps was a leading owner of the Denver Broncos from 1961 to 1981.

The Denver Broncos appear to have come knocking on the door of Savio House once again in the form of Atel Street LLC, which paid Shanahan $12.5 million for the building and land in January, more than double what he had paid less than two years earlier.

Shanahan and owners of at least a dozen other parcels around Burnham Yard in the Lincoln Park area were offered above market-rate prices and asked to sign non-disclosure agreements, according to transactions first uncovered by BusinessDen.

Why so much and why so secretive? The Broncos have said they are considering a new stadium, but not where it might be located. Burnham Yard is increasingly considered the leading site, given that there aren’t many parcels large enough and available within Denver proper.

The Colorado Department of Transportation is selling the 58-acre Burnham Yard, which it acquired in 2021 from the Union Pacific Railroad using state funds and borrowed money. Denver Water has also confirmed that it has been in talks with the team for more than a year regarding its 36-acre campus, which is adjacent to the yard.

Privately-funded stadium and arena developments around the country have been criticized for displacing low-income residents and small businesses as they add not just a sports venue but also entertainment and high-end residential districts nearby that can boost revenues for team owners.

One exception is Willets Point in Queens, N.Y., a 25,000-seat soccer stadium that includes 2,500 units of affordable housing and no high-end housing.

The sale of 1530 W. 13th Ave. came with a deed restriction that requires any new owner to build affordable housing on the site, as did the deed of another vacant parcel nearby that the Denver Housing Authority sold for $7 million.

Shanahan told the city he will use the loan funds for another affordable housing project on 1.1 acres at 155 W. 5th Ave., which is in the Baker neighborhood.

The ordinance City Council passed describes the loan transfer as a way for the “initial investment to be recycled, nearly doubling the amount of affordable housing development.”

“Timothy Leiweke allegedly led a scheme designed to steer the contract for entertainment services at a public university’s arena to his company. Public contracts are subject to laws requiring an open and competitive bid process to ensure a level playing field,” said the FBI New York Field Office Assistant Director in Charge Christopher G. Raia in a release Wednesday. “The FBI is determined to ensure that those who disregard fair competition principles do not benefit from a rigged bidding process targeting our communities and public institutions.”

The indictment, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, alleges that Leiweke, from early 2018 through June of last year, conspired with a competitor to rig the bidding for the development, management and use of the arena, which opened its doors in April 2022.

In September 2017, Leiweke is alleged to have told colleagues that he learned a competitor, Legends Hospitality, was going to bid against Oak View on the University of Texas project and that he wanted to find a way to funnel business to the rival firm to “get them to back down.”

By February 2018, Leiweke and his rival CEO allegedly reached an agreement where Legends would not submit a bid in return for receiving subcontracts, according to the indictment. That allowed Oak View to submit the sole qualified bid, resulting in an ongoing and significant revenue stream, according to the Department of Justice.

Oak View and Legends Hospitality, based in New York, have agreed to pay $15 million and $1.5 million in penalties, respectively, in connection with the conduct alleged in the indictment against Leiweke, according to the DOJ. Legends Hospitality and its CEO were not indicted.

“Oak View Group cooperated fully with the Antitrust Division’s inquiry and is pleased to have resolved this matter with no charges filed against OVG and no admission of fault or wrongdoing. We support all efforts to ensure a fair and competitive environment in our industry and are committed to upholding industry-leading compliance and disclosure practices,” the company said in a statement.

Leiweke is stepping down as CEO of the company he co-founded, but will stay on as vice chairman of the board of directors and remain a shareholder. Chris Granger, president of OVG 360, will serve as interim CEO. Granger, earlier in his career, was president of the Detroit Tigers, Detroit Red Wings and the Sacramento Kings.

“It has been my great honor to help found and lead OVG as it has grown into the special, customer-oriented company it is today. While I’m pleased the company has resolved its Department of Justice Antitrust Division inquiry without any charges filed or admission of wrongdoing, the last thing I want to do is distract from the accomplishments of the team or draw focus away from executing for our partners, so the Board and I decided that now is the right time to implement the succession plan that was already underway and transition out of the CEO role,” Leiweke said in a company statement.

In a statement to CNBC, spokesman for Leiweke said, “Mr. Leiweke has done nothing wrong and will vigorously defend himself and his well-deserved reputation for fairness and integrity.”

“The Antitrust Division’s allegations are wrong on the law and the facts, and the case should never have been brought,” the spokesman continued to CNBC. “The law is clear: vertical, complementary business partnerships, like the one contemplated between OVG and Legends, are legal.”

While president of the Denver Nuggets in the early 1990s, Leiweke showed an aptitude for arena planning. In 1994, he announced plans for a new multi-team venue and handled early negotiations with the city on a public-private venture and site location, which eventually resulted in the Pepsi Center, now Ball Arena, in 1999.

He is also credited with playing a key part in helping bring the Quebec Nordiques, the future Colorado Avalanche, to Denver. Leiweke left the Nuggets in 1995 to work with Anschutz Entertainment Group, becoming president and CEO the following year, a role he held until March 2013.

He oversaw the construction of the Staples Center in Los Angeles, which serves as home to the Lakers, Kings and Sparks, and a related entertainment district called L.A. Live. He was also behind the O2 Arena in London, the Microsoft Theater in L.A. and the Dignity Health Sports Park, a soccer stadium in Carson, Calif.

Oak View Group, which Leiweke co-founded in November 2015, employs more than 50,000 people, managing and providing services to 400 arenas around the globe. It also has $5 billion committed to new arena developments, according to the company’s website.

Oak View’s project portfolio includes the Climate Pledge Arena for the NHL’s Kraken in Seattle; the UBS Arena for the New York Islanders in Elmont, N.Y., the Total Mortgage Arena in Bridgeport, Conn., and Co-Op Live in Manchester, England,  a music and sports venue slated to become the largest in Europe once completed.

Leiweke relocated Oak View to Denver last summer. Although he has an affinity for Denver, where he spent a good part of his career, the move also would have put his company in a stronger position to bid on any new stadium that the Denver Broncos might be considering.

Leiweke is charged with a violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act and faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $1 million criminal fine, which can be increased to twice the gain derived or twice the loss suffered by victims, according to the Department of Justice.

“The conversations I have today look like they did 20 years ago, when we’re talking about retail settings — what are the traffic counts, what’s our visibility?” said Michelle Brokaw, owner and CEO of FSB Healthcare Realty in Greenwood Village. “We’re finding ourselves going head-to-head on some pretty expensive sites.”

Brokaw moderated a panel on June 26 called “The Great Ambulatory Care Migration” at the Colorado Hospital, Outpatient Facilities & Medical Office Buildings Summit in Denver, which was hosted by Corporate Realty, Design & Management Institute and the Association of Medical Facility Professionals.

Aurora-based UCHealth built a full-service emergency room offering 24/7 care in Green Valley Ranch in 2018 and another one in Littleton in 2020. Centura Health, now dissolved, added one in Arvada in 2018 and HCA HealthOne has added satellite emergency rooms in Lakewood, Parker, Littleton, Denver and Thornton.

The growth has continued despite pushback from Colorado’s Department of Health Care Policy & Financing, which oversees Medicare spending in the state. In 2021, the department offered to pay hospitals to shut down freestanding emergency rooms, which they argued targeted more affluent suburbs and charged higher rates for care better handled at lower cost by urgent care centers, according to KFF Health News.

Most providers, except for UCHealth, largely ignored the offer, and free-standing emergency rooms continue to be added.

AdventHealth in late January revealed plans to build the first medical facility at The Aurora Highlands, a 4,000-acre master planned community south of Denver International Airport. The project went vertical last month and expects to open its doors in the fall of 2026.

Residents remain sparse, but AdventHealth is planting the flag for a larger hospital campus with an emergency room on the first floor of an 88,000-square-foot facility costing $81 million. The three-story building, south of the Aurora Highlands Parkway near the E-470 exit, will have clinical spaces on the second floor and room for whatever comes next on the third floor.

“The Aurora Highlands is one of the fastest-growing areas in the Colorado market,” Michael Goebel, CEO of AdventHealth Parker and Aurora Highlands ER, said in a news release in January. “Right now, the closest emergency room is at least nine miles away. This facility will not only provide whole-person care closer to home but will keep families from having to fight traffic to get the care they need.”

Later phases will take the emergency room up to a Level III trauma center and add an acute care hospital as the surrounding area gains population.

Most freestanding emergency rooms coming onto the scene, however, don’t intend to grow into something bigger. They are smaller and self-contained by design, trying to squeeze as affordably as possible into already built-out communities.

HCA HealthOne is exploring a freestanding emergency room on the northwest corner of 38th Avenue and Wadsworth Boulevard at the site of a former Midas auto repair shop and a still-active retail strip mall called the Wilmore Center, which is home to Duke’s Dog Wash and a Subway.

That location was the home turf of Lutheran Medical Center until last year, when it moved further west to a new home at Interstate 70 and Youngsfield Street. Wheat Ridge has changed its zoning rules to allow for mixed-use development, including on the former Lutheran campus, opening up the door for HCA to claim a location where people have been going for decades to receive care.

Freestanding emergency rooms at HCA cost $15 million on average to build and run about 12,000 square feet, said Darin Long, construction manager at HCA Healthcare, who said business is booming.

Long and his team are working on 80 ambulatory locations, a mix that ranges from greenfield projects on raw land to scrapes of older buildings to adaptive reuse, or the repurposing of older buildings.

Freestanding ambulatory facilities reduce travel times and provide patients with more convenient access, he said. They also cut down on the traffic at traditional hospitals, which increasingly are struggling with backlogged emergency rooms, supporters argue.

Once a location is secured, a new building can go up in eight to 10 months, aided by standardized designs, pre-fabricated components and relationships with contractors who can hit the repeat button when it comes to building the smaller facilities, Long said.

“The barriers are just figuring out where to build these things. You know, they don’t make any more land. So it’s becoming more and more difficult to find locations,” Long said.

HCA has a dedicated team scouting for locations and locking them down so the company can move quickly into design and construction.

That’s where retail locations come in. Although retail vacancies are low and new retail construction is undersupplied, several large-format retailers have closed in recent years, putting space back on the market. Abandoned big box stores are popular, given that they tend to have lots of room, a high-profile location in a high traffic corridor and ample parking.

Scott Becker, publisher and chief content officer of Becker’s Healthcare, told those attending the summit that hospital infrastructure in many parts of the country is between 50 to 100 years old — that was the case for the Lutheran Medical Center before it completed its new hospital last year.

The problem is that about 40% of hospitals are not profitable and many of those that are operate on thin margins, Becker said. There isn’t a lot of money to support hospital reconstruction.

Intermountain Health spent $685 million and four years to build the new Lutheran hospital, which is about 400,000 square feet smaller than the original. Such heavy lifts add to the appeal of bite-sized outpatient facilities that can be put up in a year or two, that attract new customers at higher profit margins, and that offer employees shorter commutes.

The Denver-based Center for Improving Value in Health Care, however, argues that most of the conditions treated in freestanding ERs would be better handled at urgent care centers at up to one-tenth the cost. True emergency care requirements are less common than what the surge in emergency room capacity would suggest.

An emergency room typically operates 24/7 with more advanced imaging equipment and maintains a higher level of staffing, including physicians and specialists. Urgent care centers have more limited hours and rely more heavily on physician assistants and nurse practitioners. Their diagnostic tools and the procedures they can undertake are more limited.

Emergency rooms charge much higher hospital rates, while urgent care centers charge lower clinic-based billing rates. The more emergency rooms that are out there, the more likely patients will turn to them for issues that urgent care can handle, and the more state and federal governments will have to reimburse those receiving assistance.

The rise of outpatient facilities represents a market penetration strategy, a way to attract new customers and hopefully build brand loyalty in a highly competitive field, said Derek Ortner, director of health care strategy at Boulder Associates, an architectural firm specializing in health care facilities.

“I want to be where the people are, right? I love the convenience. I want to be where Target is, where Chick-fil-A is. I want to be on the corner of Main and Main,” said Ortner, who used to run outpatient centers.

Although the region has upgraded much of its health care infrastructure, it has come at the cost of a less centralized system. New hospital campuses are typically located on the periphery, where land is more affordable.

Metro Denver has three Level I trauma centers, which are the top of the line in emergency care. All three were once easily accessible to someone living in central Denver. Only one still is — Denver Health. Getting to CommonSpirit St. Anthony’s emergency room used to require a 2.3-mile trip from downtown to 4231 W. 16th Ave. Now the trip to 11600 W. 2nd Place in Lakewood is closer to 9.6 miles.

The drive from downtown to University Hospital, the third Level I trauma center, has gone from 3.3 miles to 8.3 miles. Likewise, the drive from downtown to Children’s Hospital, once in the heart of Denver, has gone from 1.5 miles to 8.5 miles. That said, adding more freestanding emergency rooms, which don’t provide Level I care, won’t change that gap when it comes to Level 1 care.

Denverites still have options, like St. Joseph Hospital, and the far-flung relocations do benefit suburban residents who live nearby.  But even some suburban hospitals have moved further out. CommonSpirit St. Anthony North, which used to be near 84th Avenue and Federal Boulevard, is now 59 blocks to the north at 14300 Orchard Parkway.

Locating to underserved perimeter areas can provide a more protected territory for a hospital and put it in the path of future housing growth. But longer driving times represent a hassle for those living in well-established neighborhoods, which is the majority of the population.

Long argued that the trend of building freestanding emergency rooms has more room to run, while Ortner thinks that standalone facilities over time will shift to providing primary care with a focus on wellness. And there is an argument to be made for specialized care becoming more disbursed.

Chris Martin, vice president of ambulatory services at Children’s Hospital Colorado, identified orthopedics, infusion centers, and neurophysiology, especially sleep centers, as having significant growth potential when it comes to standalone care facilities in the future.

Get more business news by signing up for our Economy Now newsletter.

Colorado State Patrol said as of 5:15 p.m., all westbound lanes of I-70 and U.S. 40 are now open following earlier closures.

“Please continue to drive safely as traffic returns to normal flow,” the agency said.

Vehicles traveling westbound on Interstate 70 out of metro Denver were being forced to turn around at the Beaver Brook exit near Floyd Hill and where U.S. 6 joins with I-70 after a fatal crash earlier this afternoon, according to the Colorado Department of Transportation.

The Colorado State Patrol initially strongly encouraged motorists to avoid heading westbound on Interstate 70 or traveling southbound on U.S. 285 after the crash.

Those trying to slip by the main roadblock via U.S. 6 were also rerouted once they reached I-70.

I-70 was closed in both directions just after 1 p.m. Thursday between Exit 205 at Dillon and Silverthorne and Exit 216 at Loveland Pass because of a fatal multi-vehicle crash that resulted in a fire, authorities said.

A crash between a 2021 RAM hauling a trailer and a Freightliner semi-truck, also hauling a trailer, sparked a severe vehicle fire on I-70 west at mile marker 218 and resulted in the death of an occupant and a dog traveling in the RAM truck, according to the Colorado State Patrol.

The closure couldn’t come at a worse time as thousands of metro Denver residents head up to the mountains to celebrate Independence Day.

The Eisenhower-Johnson Tunnel averages about 32,000 vehicles a day. But that number spikes to more than 50,000 during the weekends surrounding July 4. This year, the holiday creates the potential for a three-day weekend.

This is a developing story that may be updated. 

Get more Colorado news by signing up for our Mile High Roundup email newsletter.

At the current pace of sales, the supply of unsold homes would last 3.6 months, marking the most sluggish resale market the region has seen since 2011.

“Buyers and sellers who began the year operating on outdated assumptions – expecting lower interest rates, surging competition or guaranteed appreciation — are now confronting a market that demands flexibility and realism,” Amanda Snitker, chairwoman of the DMAR Market Trends Committee and a local Realtor, said in comments accompanying the report.

Snitker described the Denver housing market at midyear as a study in “recalibration,” adding that those stuck in what they think should be happening are contributing to “hesitation, missed opportunities and stalled deals.”

Sellers put 5,929 new listings on the market in June, which is on par with last year, but represents an 18.4% drop from the 7,269 new listings that came out in May. But the new supply still outstripped closings, allowing the inventory to keep building.

The number of closings, at 3,864, is down 9.6% from May and 1.6% from June 2024. The number of active listings, at 14,007, was up 3% over the month and 37.1% over the year.

While price gains have moderated, buyers have yet to see the kind of discounts that might make it easier for them to buy.

The median price of a single-family home sold in June was $665,895, up slightly from the $665,000 median sales price in May and 0.9% higher than June 2024.

The median sales price of condos and townhomes didn’t move at all, staying right at $400,000 in June. Prices are down 2.4% from the median of $409,900 measured a year ago.

Higher-end homes are seeing a bigger backlog of inventory build up than entry-level homes. Luxury condos priced from $1.5 million to just under $2 million are sitting on a 14-month supply, according to the report.

The highest-priced attached home sold in June was at 223 Garfield St. in Denver, which sold for $4.4 million. The highest detached home sale last month, at $6.8 million, was 1700 E Tufts Ave., an 11,062-square-foot estate in Cherry Hills Village that sits on a 2.5-acre lot.

The number of days that listings require to go under contract went from a median of 13 in May to 18 in June. In a case of extreme patience, the report also noted that a high-end condo that had been on the market since April 2022 finally sold.

For the first half of the year, the number of new listings is up 14.5% compared to the same period in 2024. Closings are down 1% and the median days on market is up 46% to 19 days.

Median home and condo prices stood at $600,000, right where it was in the first half of 2022, which was considered the peak year for real estate activity in the current cycle.

Ricky Roybal-Smith, 38, of Aurora, faces first-degree murder charges in each of the three separate homicides, according to Aurora and Denver police.

Roybal-Smith was being held in Denver’s Downtown Detention Center for investigation of first-degree murder in the Monday morning strangling death of his cellmate, Vincent Chacon, when Aurora detectives obtained a warrant connecting him to two fatal stabbings in northwest Aurora.

In the Denver case, Roybal-Smith alerted a deputy around 2 a.m. Monday that his cellmate Chacon, 35, was choking on an apple and needed help, according to a statement of probable cause filed with Denver District Court.

The deputy found Chacon lying unresponsive on the lower bunk bed with a blanket up to his neck and began CPR. When paramedics arrived, they couldn’t revive him.

Two Denver police detectives came to the jail to investigate Chacon’s death, and one of them found red marks on his neck and discoloration of his eyes, which the detective considered more aligned with manual strangulation rather than choking on food.

Officers transported Roybal-Smith for an interview at the homicide unit, where he invoked his right to remain silent, according to court records.

In the Aurora case, detectives previously had connected the two stabbings because they were similar and happened close to each other on the same morning. Both victims were homeless at the time of their deaths.

Police discovered the first man in the 1500 block of Moline Street about 1:45 a.m. Sunday and found the other man near a bus stop on Peoria Street south of East Colfax Avenue about 6:30 that morning.

The detectives obtained a warrant to arrest Roybal-Smith on first-degree murder charges, according to a news release, but did not say how they linked him to the stabbings. The warrant for his arrest was not available Thursday evening.

Roybal-Smith was initially being held in the Denver jail on charges of careless driving that injured two pedestrians at Galapago Street and North Ninth Avenue, and then leaving the scene of that crash, and of driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

He is also suspected of being involved in a second crash at westbound Interstate 70 and North Lowell Boulevard.

Roybal-Smith previously pleaded guilty to vehicular assault charges in 2016 related to a high-speed chase with Littleton police in December 2015 that ended in a crash into a parked SUV at South Santa Fe Drive and West Oxford Avenue. Royal-Smith received a 12-year prison sentence for seriously injuring a person and avoiding arrest.

He qualified for an early release under Colorado law and was out on parole in 2022 after serving only half of his prison sentence. While on parole, he was arrested on felony menacing charges after swinging a filet knife at a fellow customer in a Walmart store in Englewood.

Roybal-Smith received a four-year sentence in that menacing case, but was released early on parole in January.

He is expected to be transferred to Adams County and booked on the new first-degree murder charges, according to a news release issued Wednesday by the Aurora Police Department, but he was still in Denver’s detention center as of 4:20 p.m. Thursday.

Aurora police are offering a reward of up to $2,000 for information related to the homicide cases via Metro Denver Crime Stoppers at 720-913-7867. Tipsters can remain anonymous.

Sign up to get crime news sent straight to your inbox each day.

Metro Denver should see highs in the mid-90s on Thursday before high temperatures move into the lower 90s for the July Fourth holiday weekend, according to a forecast from the National Weather Service. Lows will be in the mid-60s Thursday night and stay in the low-60s the remainder of the weekend.

There is a slight chance of storms developing during the afternoons throughout the next four days, with the odds of a random shower highest on Thursday and Friday. But nighttime skies are expected to be clear on Friday and Saturday nights, which should make for good conditions to watch a fireworks or drone show.

There is a 20% chance of showers and thunderstorms on Thursday afternoon with mostly sunny conditions. Light and variable winds with gusts as high as 21 miles per hour. Showers remain a slight possibility through midnight and then again after 3 a.m. on Friday. The low in Denver will be around 66 degrees with light winds out of the south and southeast.

For Independence Day, there will be a slight chance of showers in the morning before 9 a.m. and then a chance of showers and thunderstorms, about 30%, during the afternoon. Winds will be lighter than on Thursday, but gusts from the north and northwest could reach 15 miles per hour.

Showers and storms are expected on Thursday at higher elevations, including small hail and strong wind gusts in some areas during the afternoon. Conditions on the Plains will be warmer than along the Front Range and the wind speeds will be higher through the weekend, according to the National Weather Service.

Employers in the state added 3,400 nonfarm jobs in May, according to an update Monday from the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment. That was passable, but the real news came in revisions to the April count, which pushed the 8,400 jobs initially reported to 14,900.

Leaving out the wild swings between 2020 and 2022 during the pandemic, April’s monthly gain was the largest the state has recorded since April 1999 during the heady dot-com boom, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Over the past year, the state has added 22,200 jobs, a weak showing that depended heavily on government hiring. In the past two months, employers have added 18,300 jobs or more than 80% of the annual gain. And the thrust of hiring has shifted from the public to the private sector. (March was also strong, but it was influenced by workers returning from a King Soopers strike.)

Colorado’s upward revisions run counter to the national trend, where initial reports of 177,000 jobs gained in April were lowered to 147,000. Colorado accounted for about a tenth of the jobs added in the country in April, even though it represents 1.9% of payroll jobs.

Colorado appears to have undergone the economic equivalent of Captain Kirk on the Starship Enterprise issuing the command “Warp speed, Mr. Sulu.”

Or maybe not. Economists question whether the state is charting a more positive course. To them, a more likely explanation is that the speedometer is broken, meaning the state will have a hard time escaping the negative drag generated by policies emanating from Washington, D.C., as Democrats argue, or a heavy regulatory hand from the state legislature, as Republicans argue.

“I am not reading too much into the month-to-month swings. My intuition is that there is variation due to statistical noise and data collection/reporting issues,” said Brian Lewandowski, executive director of the Business Research Division at the University of Colorado’s Leeds School of Business, which puts out the most comprehensive state economic forecast in December.

Lewandowski said it is hard to make sense of a 77% upward revision in the April numbers and Colorado’s sudden shift from a bottom to top performer for job growth. His focus is more on the moving average of job growth, which is also showing improvement, and how the pullback in federal employment and spending will play out in the larger economy, he said.

Federal employment in the state is down 1,500 over the past month and 1,800 over the past year, although buyout and severance agreements appear to be delaying the full impact, he said. Third-party contractors, tallied within the private sector, will take a hit, as will federally funded research at universities, which could lower state government headcounts.

Cole Anderson, deputy director of policy and research at the Common Sense Institute, a business-funded think tank, notes that the state’s unemployment rate didn’t change despite supposedly strong hiring the past three months. The unemployment rate is based on a separate and smaller survey of households. Historically, strong hiring tends to soak up unemployed workers, but that isn’t happening, which makes the payroll numbers suspect.

“Colorado’s unemployment rate continues to be a warning flag. The state’s unemployment rate held at 4.8% in May for the third consecutive month, well above the national rate of just 4.2%,” he said in an email.

Colorado’s unemployment rate has run significantly above the national average over a sustained period for the first time in 25 years, and that too is a warning signal.

Broomfield economist Gary Horvath said that while monthly changes offer a positive snapshot, they come in a context of greater economic uncertainty.

Colorado employment counts, which were flagged as unreliable last year, may have underreported gains in the fourth and first quarters, and could be overstating them in the second, leading Horvath to lean more heavily on annual changes.

Over the past year, the public sector added 12,000 jobs and the private sector has added 10,200, led by gains in educational and health services, up 9,200; leisure and hospitality, up 8,900, and information up 2,200. Several important sectors have contracted, including professional and business services; trade, transportation and utilities; construction, and financial activities.

Government hiring is stalling as the Trump administration reduces federal payrolls. Reduced federal spending is also putting pressure on state and local governments and their ability to retain workers.

Colorado, after shaving $1.2 billion in spending for the upcoming year, faces a $700 million budget shortfall in the 2026 fiscal year. Federal cuts in food assistance and Medicaid now before Congress could shift another $650 million a year onto the state budget, while proposed tax cuts could lower revenues another $600 million, according to the Office of State Planning and Budgeting. (OSPB)

“If the federal budget shifts more costs onto states, as many anticipate, Colorado’s fiscal outlook could go from tight to untenable,” Chris Stiffler, a senior economist at the Colorado Fiscal Institute, said in his review of the latest forecast from the Colorado Legislative Council, which came out at the same time as the OSPB’s forecast.

Credit card debt in the state is at a 14-year high and consumer confidence at a 20-year low as households struggle to stay afloat. Worries are mounting about higher costs from tariffs on imported goods. Colorado consumers appear to be tightening their spending more than residents of other states, Stiffler said.

Residents won’t receive TABOR rebates this year or next and revenue decreases are expected to trigger cuts in the Family Affordability Tax Credit, the extended Earned Income Tax Credit, as well as credits to support the purchase of electric vehicles, heat pumps and e-bikes, among other things.

And if a recession hits, which the OSPB puts at 50-50 odds for mild and 25% odds for severe, the state may suffer an additional $1.6 billion hit to its budget, according to its forecast.

Local governments are also under stress, most notably Denver, which faces a $250 million shortfall over the next two years. It is implementing furloughs and considering job cuts to cope with reduced revenues.

Tourism, an important part of the Colorado economy, is under pressure, reflecting the state’s heavier reliance on visitors from Canada and Mexico. Canadian visits to the U.S. are down by nearly 40% in May 2025 compared to the same month last year. Canadians have called for a travel boycott to protest U.S. trade policies and President Trump’s call that Canada become the 51st state, according to Forbes.com.

Those comments might be tongue-in-cheek, but they have irked Canadians. Visits from Mexico are also down, although not as much. Visitors from those two counties contributed $265 million in tourism spending and accounted for nearly half of the international visitors to the state last year, according to a report from Travel and Tour World.

Hotel occupancy rates in Colorado in May of this year were down 15.1% compared to last year, a decline more severe than the 0.7% decrease averaged in Utah, California and Nevada, according to data from Inntopia’s DestiMetrics cited in the report. Bookings across the region have fallen for six months, the worst streak since the pandemic.

Homeowners in Colorado have experienced the largest increase in escrow costs, which cover property taxes and insurance, of any state at 31% the past year, according to Cotality, a real estate research firm.

That has left homeowners with less disposable income, and makes it more difficult for renters to purchase a home, which is showing up in a softer market for both new and existing homes and a rising inventory of unsold properties.

Metro Denver had the biggest drop in annual median asking rents of any major metro in the country at 7.5%, according to Realtor.com. That is a positive for renters, but it has contributed to a sharp reduction in permits pulled for new apartments. More recently, single-family construction has also started slowing down.

Adding downward pressure on the construction industry, non-residential construction spending is down by a fifth over the past year through April in Colorado, compared to a 2.8% gain nationally, according to F.W. Dodge.

“The construction market was weak in 2024, and it appears to be weaker in 2025,” Horvath said.

Even if the private sector has fired up its hiring engines, is it too little, too late, as forecasts increasingly suggest, to prevent Colorado from being sucked into a recessionary vortex?

Get more business news by signing up for our Economy Now newsletter.