But last week, she shuttered A Line Boutique’s store at 1750 Wewatta St., telling BusinessDen the location lost $400,000 last year.

“It never came back,” she said of the pre-pandemic environment downtown.

Berensten bought A Line in 2012 when it had a single location in Greenwood Village. Along with the store at the base of the Coloradan condominium complex, she added locations in Denver’s Cherry Creek, plus Salt Lake City and Carlsbad, California. She moved the original store in 2018 to the Denver Tech Center’s Belleview Station.

Those four stores are profitable, she said, selling designer brands like L’agence, Zimmermann and Max Mara. But with the 3,200-square-foot Union Station store deep in the red, she said, 2024 was the only year in her tenure that A Line’s overall sales numbers shrunk.

“Every other store grew, but Union Station dragged it down,” she said.

Berensten blames vagrancy and theft issues, and a lease she now sees as overpriced.

At a crossroads: Downtown Denver is waiting for its rebound

People have walked in and stolen thousands of dollars worth of purses, she said. Another woman stayed in the dressing room for hours past closing before finally running out the door with clothes. Berensten said building security has been unresponsive in the last few years and hiring her own private security guard would cost too much.

“Guys come in and grab a $2,000 purse and walk out. And then the police are like ‘Did anyone get hurt? No? Then file insurance if you want,’” she said. “We have homeless people sitting right against our door and no one will do anything. You would think they would. We have to keep the door locked and have a Ring doorbell.”

Since the pandemic, A Line’s Union Station spot has lost seven employees — compared to one across all her other stores — nearly all because they felt unsafe, Berensten said. One stylist even brought in bear spray for protection before she quit.

Berensten said she’s paying rent of $55 a square foot per year for the space along with utilities, property taxes and insurance as part of the 10-year lease she signed in 2019. She thinks the market value today is closer to $30 a foot, mainly because of the area’s decline in recent years.

“The current market rate is half of what our lease is. We’ve tried and tried and tried to get it negotiated, and (our landlord Ascentrist) wouldn’t even come to the table,” she said.

With A Line leaving, six of the 10 retail units at the Coloradan are available, according to a JLL listing. The restaurant Eggs Inc also closed there earlier this month after opening in January.

Berensten said the focus is now on her four other stores and continued out-of-state expansion, hopefully getting to a total of 10 stores. She thinks two spots is a good number for Colorado. A Line also closed a Castle Rock spot when its lease was up in March.

While her remaining stores are doing well, Berensten said it’s a challenging time in general for brick-and-mortar.

“Retail just doesn’t have margin, especially with tariffs now and online (shopping). It has never been worse in 13 years,” she said. “It wasn’t this hard during Covid. Everyone now expects not to pay full price.”

The 51-year-old former tech entrepreneur, who sold her consulting firm GB Synergy for millions at 33, also wants to expand A Line Experiences, whose trips include African horseback safaris and Paris Fashion Week excursions.

“I am a woman who has range,” she said. For a long time I felt like I needed to be in a box, be a working woman but be in a man’s world… You have to be able to go to the dark night of the soul.”

Read more from our partner, BusinessDen.

“PetSmart lured prospective dog groomers with promises of ‘free’ paid training, only to trap them into staying with the company,” Attorney General Phil Weiser said in a statement.

In a lawsuit filed in Denver District Court, Weiser’s office highlighted a half-dozen PetSmart ads claiming that its grooming academy was free. In reality, it cost either $5,000 or $5,500. If an employee stayed with PetSmart for at least one year after graduating, half of that cost was forgiven. If the employee stayed for two years, the full tuition was forgiven.

“For most associates, thousands of dollars was too high a cost to pay to leave their position,” the lawsuit states. “This meant that many associates stayed in their positions for two years, even if it meant giving up higher paying opportunities or better work environments.”

Meanwhile, training at the grooming academy was substandard, the government alleges. One Colorado employee showed her PetSmart grooming certificate to a prospective employer “who laughed and confirmed the certificate was not valid elsewhere,” Weiser’s office says.

The state’s lawsuit gets much use out of the name of the contract PetSmart grooming students were required to sign: a training repayment agreement provision, or TRAP.

Spokespeople for PetSmart, which has 35 stores in Colorado, declined to comment Tuesday.

The attorney general’s office is asking Judge Heidi Kutcher to prohibit PetSmart from collecting on debts from former grooming academy participants. It is also seeking penalties of up to $50,000 per TRAP, which it claims violates the Colorado Consumer Protection Act.

Read more at our partner, BusinessDen.

The new 140,000-square-foot location, set to open by late 2026, will cover two floors and will feature 19 departments, including furniture, housewares, appliances, mattresses, florals, decor and dedicated areas for design services.

The new store will be at The Shops at Northfield, which is owned and managed by Stockdale Capital Partners, a private equity firm based in Los Angeles.

The building used to be a Macy’s, before closing its doors earlier this year. Major retailer JCPenney also exited the shopping center in late May.

“We’re thrilled to partner with Wayfair as part of the transformation of The Shops at Northfield,” said Jeff Bhathal, co-head and managing director, retail at Stockdale Capital Partners.

Many items are available to purchase and take home, however, larger products like sofas, shuffleboard tables and dining sets can be shipped through Wayfair’s delivery service.

Denver customers will also be able to relax at The Porch, an all-day café serving food and a variety of beverages

“As we expand our physical retail footprint into new regions across the U.S., we remain focused on delivering an exceptional shopping experience that brings the best of Wayfair to life,” said Liza Lefkowski, vice president of merchandising and stores at Wayfair.

Known primarily as an online retailer, Wayfair opened its first brick-and-mortar store in Wilmette, Ill., in May 2024 and is now expanding its physical locations. Denver marks its third location announced this year, alongside new stores in Atlanta and Yonkers, N.Y.

The lease transaction was represented by Erik Christopher, with Tami Lord and Tony Pierangeli at SRS Real Estate Partners, and Matt Curtin with Newmark.

Founded in 2002 and headquartered in Boston, Wayfair generated $11.9 billion net revenue for the 12 months ending March 31.

The company maintains offices across North America, Canada, Ireland, India, China and Europe, according to its website.

Wayfair’s family of brands include Wayfair, Joss & Main, AllModern, Birch Lane, Perigold and Wayfair Professional.

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NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. fashion retailer American Eagle Outfitters wanted to make a splash with its new advertising campaign starring 27-year-old actor Sydney Sweeney. The ad blitz included “clever, even provocative language” and was “definitely going to push buttons,” the company’s chief marketing officer told trade media outlets.

It has. The question now is whether some of the public reactions the fall denim campaign produced is what American Eagle intended.

Titled “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans,” the campaign sparked a debate about race, Western beauty standards, and the backlash to “woke” American politics and culture. Most of the negative reception focused on videos that used the word “genes” instead of “jeans” when discussing the blonde-haired, blue-eyed actor known for the HBO series “Euphoria” and “White Lotus.”

Some critics saw the wordplay as a nod, either unintentional or deliberate, to eugenics, a discredited theory that held humanity could be improved through selective breeding for certain traits.

Marcus Collins, an assistant professor of marketing at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, said the criticism could have been avoided if the ads showed models of various races making the “genes” pun.

“You can either say this was ignorance, or this was laziness, or say that this is intentional,” Collins said. “Either one of the three aren’t good.”

Other commenters accused detractors of reading too much into the campaign’s message.

“I love how the leftist meltdown over the Sydney Sweeney ad has only resulted in a beautiful white blonde girl with blue eyes getting 1000x the exposure for her ‘good genes,’” former Fox News host Megyn Kelly wrote Tuesday on X.

American Eagle didn’t respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press.

A snapshot of American Eagle

The ad blitz comes as the teen retailer, like many merchants, wrestles with sluggish consumer spending and higher costs from tariffs. American Eagle reported that total sales were down 5% for its February-April quarter compared to a year earlier.

A day after Sweeney was announced as the company’s latest celebrity collaborator, American Eagle’s stock closed more than 4% up. Shares were volatile this week and trading nearly 2% down Wednesday.

Like many trendy clothing brands, American Eagle has to differentiate itself from other mid-priced chains with a famous face or by saying something edgy, according to Alan Adamson, co-founder of marketing consultancy Metaforce.

Adamson said the Sweeney campaign shares a lineage with Calvin Klein jeans ads from 1980 that featured a 15-year-old Brooke Shields saying, “You want to know what comes in between me and my Calvins? Nothing.” Some TV networks declined to air the spots because of its suggestive double entendre and Shields’ age.

“It’s the same playbook: a very hot model saying provocative things shot in an interesting way,” Adamson said.

Billboards, Instagram and Snapchat

Chief Marketing Officer Craig Brommers told industry news website Retail Brew last week that “Sydney is the biggest get in the history of American Eagle,” and the company would promote the partnership in a way that matched.

The campaign features videos of Sweeney wearing slouchy jeans in various settings. She will appear on 3-D billboards in Times Square and elsewhere, speaking to users on Snapchat and Instagram, and in an AI-enabled try-on feature.

American Eagle also plans to launch a limited edition Sydney jean to raise awareness of domestic violence, with sales proceeds going to a nonprofit crisis counseling service.

In a news release, the company noted “Sweeney’s girl next door charm and main character energy – paired with her ability to not take herself too seriously – is the hallmark of this bold, playful campaign.”

Jeans, genes and their many meanings

In one video, Sweeney walks toward an American Eagle billboard of her and the tagline “Sydney Sweeney has great genes.” She crosses out “genes” and replaces it with “jeans.”

But what critics found the most troubling was a teaser video in which Sweeney says, “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality and even eye color. My jeans are blue.”

The video appeared on American Eagle’s Facebook page and other social media channels but is not part of the campaign.

While remarking that someone has good genes is sometimes used as a compliment, the phrase also has sinister connotations. Eugenics gained popularity in early 20th century America, and Nazi Germany embraced it to carry out Adolf Hitler’s plan for an Aryan master race.

Civil rights activists have noted signs of eugenics regaining a foothold through the far right’s promotion of the “great replacement theory,” a racist ideology that alleges a conspiracy to diminish the influence of white people.

Shalini Shankar, a cultural and linguistic anthropologist at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, said she had problems with American Eagle’s “genes” versus “jeans” because it exacerbates a limited concept of beauty.

“American Eagle, I guess, wants to rebrand itself for a particular kind of white privileged American,” Shankar said. “And that is the kind of aspirational image they want to circulate for people who want to wear their denim.”

A cultural shift in advertising

Many critics compared the American Eagle ad to a misstep by Pepsi in 2017, when it released a TV ad that showed model Kendall Jenner offer a can of soda to a police officer while ostensibly stepping away from a photo shoot to join a crowd of protesters.

Viewers mocked the spot for appearing to trivialize protests of police killings of Black people. Pepsi apologized and pulled the ad.

The demonstrations that followed the 2020 killing of George Floyd by a white police officer in Minneapolis pushed many U.S. companies to make their advertising better reflect consumers of all races.

Some marketers say they’ve observed another shift since President Donald Trump returned to office and moved to abolish all federal DEI programs and policies.

Jazmin Burrell, founder of brand consulting agency Lizzie Della Creative Strategies, said she’s noticed while shopping with her cousin more ads and signs that prominently feature white models.

“I can see us going back to a world where diversity is not really the standard expectation in advertising,” Burrell said.

American Eagle’s past and future

American Eagle has been praised for diverse marketing in the past, including creating a denim hijab in 2017 and offering its Aerie lingerie brand in a wide range of sizes. A year ago, the company released a limited edition denim collection with tennis star Coco Gauff.

The retailer has an ongoing diversity, equity and inclusion program that is primarily geared toward employees. Two days before announcing the Sweeney campaign, American Eagle named the latest recipients of its scholarship award for employees who are driving anti-racism, equality and social justice initiatives.

Marketing experts offer mixed opinions on whether the attention surrounding “good jeans” will be good for business.

“They were probably thinking that this is going to be their moment,” Myles Worthington, the founder and CEO of marketing and creative agency WORTHI. “But this is doing the opposite and deeply distorting their brand.”

Melissa Murphy, a marketing professor at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business, said she liked certain parts of the campaign but hoped it would be expanded to showcase people besides Sweeney for the “sake of the brand.”

Other experts say the buzz is good even if it’s not uniformly positive.

“If you try to follow all the rules, you’ll make lots of people happy, but you’ll fail,” Adamson said. “The rocket won’t take off. ”

The average rate on a 30-year U.S. mortgage eased to where it was three weeks ago, modest relief for prospective homebuyers challenged by rising home prices and stubbornly high borrowing costs.

The long-term rate slipped to 6.72% from 6.74% last week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday. A year ago, the rate averaged 6.73%.

Borrowing costs on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages, popular with homeowners refinancing their home loans, also eased. The average rate dropped to 5.85% from 5.87% last week. A year ago, it was 5.99%, Freddie Mac said.

Elevated mortgage rates continue to weigh on the U.S. housing market, which has been in a sales slump going back to 2022, when rates started to climb from the rock-bottom lows they reached during the pandemic.

Mortgage rates are influenced by several factors, from the Federal Reserve’s interest rate policy decisions to bond market investors’ expectations for the economy and inflation.

The main barometer is the 10-year Treasury yield, which lenders use as a guide to pricing home loans. The yield was at 4.34% at midday Thursday, down from 4.37% late Wednesday.

Yields moved higher most of July as traders bet that the Fed would keep its key short-term interest rate unchanged at its meeting this month.

On Wednesday, the central bank’s policymaking committee voted to hold its main interest rate steady. And Fed Chair Jerome Powell pushed back on expectations that the Fed could cut rates at its next meeting in September, pointing to how inflation remains above the Fed’s 2% target, while the job market still looks to be “in balance.”

A cut in rates would give the job market and overall economy a boost, but it could also fuel inflation just as the Trump administration’s tariffs risk raising prices for U.S. consumers.

“If a September rate cut starts to be more likely, it is possible that we could see mortgage rates edge downward at the end of the summer, similar to what we saw last year at this time,” said Lisa Sturtevant, chief economist at Bright MLS. “If inflation expectations continue to be high, mortgage rates could also remain higher.”

The average rate on a 30-year mortgage has remained relatively close to its high so far this year of just above 7%, set in mid-January. The 30-year rate’s low point this year was in early April when it briefly dipped to 6.62%.

Economists generally expect the average rate on a 30-year mortgage to remain above 6% this year. Recent forecasts by Realtor.com and Fannie Mae project the average rate will ease to around 6.4% by the end of this year.

That may not be enough to spur a turnaround in home sales, which remain sluggish so far this year.

New data on contract signings this week suggest home sales could soften further in the near term. A seasonally adjusted index of pending U.S. home sales fell 0.8% in June from the previous month and was down 2.8% from June last year, according to the National Association of Realtors.

There’s usually a month or two lag between a contract signing and when the sale is finalized, which makes pending home sales a bellwether for future completed home sales.

The housing market doldrums are helping to keep the U.S. homeownership rate stuck at around 65%, as of the second quarter, according to the U.S. Census. The homeownership rate is now at its lowest level since 2019, when it was 64.2%. It has averaged 66.3% going back to 2000.

Despite rates easing in recent weeks, mortgage applications fell 3.8% last week from a week earlier to their lowest level since May, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. Applications were still up 21.8% versus the same period last year.

“There is still plenty of uncertainty surrounding the economy and job market, which is weighing on prospective homebuyers’ decisions,” said Joel Kan, deputy chief economist.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order that set new tariffs on a wide swath of U.S. trading partners to go into effect on Aug. 7 — the next step in his trade agenda that will test the global economy and sturdiness of American alliances built up over decades.

The order was issued shortly after 7 p.m. on Thursday evening. It came after a flurry of tariff-related activity in the last several days, as the White House announced agreements with various nations and blocs ahead of the president’s self-imposed Friday deadline. The tariffs are being implemented at a later date in order for the rates schedule to be harmonized, according to a senior administration official who spoke to reporters on a call on the condition of anonymity.

The order capped off a hectic Thursday as nations sought to continue negotiating with Trump. It set the rates for 68 countries and the 27-member European Union, with a baseline 10% rate to be charged on countries not listed in the order. The senior administration official said the rates were based on trade imbalance with the U.S. and regional economic profiles.

On Thursday morning, Trump engaged in a phone conversation with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum on trade. As a result of the conversation, the U.S. president said he would enter into a 90-day negotiating period with Mexico, one of the nation’s largest trading partners, with the current 25% tariff rates staying in place, down from the 30% he had threatened earlier.

“We avoided the tariff increase announced for tomorrow and we got 90 days to build a long-term agreement through dialogue,” Mexican leader Claudia Sheinbaum wrote on X after a call with Trump that he referred to as “very successful” in terms of the leaders getting to know each other better.

The unknowns created a sense of drama that has defined Trump’s rollout of tariffs over several months, with the one consistency being his desire to levy the import taxes that most economists say will ultimately be borne to some degree by U.S. consumers and businesses.

“We have made a few deals today that are excellent deals for the country,” Trump told reporters on Thursday afternoon without detailing the terms of those agreements or nations involved. The senior administration official declined to reveal the nations that have new deals during the call with reporters.

Trump said that Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney had called ahead of 35% tariffs being imposed on many of his nation’s goods, but “we haven’t spoken to Canada today.”

Trump imposed the Friday deadline after his previous “Liberation Day” tariffs in April resulted in a stock market panic. His unusually high tariff rates unveiled in April led to recession fears, prompting Trump to impose a 90-day negotiating period. When he was unable to create enough trade deals with other countries, he extended the timeline and sent out letters to world leaders that simply listed rates, prompting a slew of hasty deals.

Trump reached a deal with South Korea on Wednesday, and earlier with the European Union, Japan, Indonesia and the Philippines. His commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, said on Fox News Channel’s “Hannity” that there were agreements with Cambodia and Thailand after they had agreed to a ceasefire to their border conflict.

Going into Thursday, wealthy Switzerland and Norway were still uncertain about their tariff rates. EU officials were waiting to complete a crucial document outlining how the framework to tax imported autos and other goods from the 27-member state bloc would operate. Trump had announced a deal Sunday while he was in Scotland.

Trump said as part of the agreement with Mexico that goods imported into the U.S. would continue to face a 25% tariff that he has ostensibly linked to fentanyl trafficking. He said autos would face a 25% tariff, while copper, aluminum and steel would be taxed at 50% during the negotiating period.

He said Mexico would end its “Non Tariff Trade Barriers,” but he didn’t provide specifics.

Some goods continue to be protected from the tariffs by the 2020 U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, which Trump negotiated during his first term.

But Trump appeared to have soured on that deal, which is up for renegotiation next year. One of his first significant moves as president was to impose tariffs on goods from both Mexico and Canada earlier this year.

U.S. Census Bureau figures show that the U.S. ran a $171.5 billion trade imbalance with Mexico last year. That means the U.S. bought more goods from Mexico than it sold to the country.

The imbalance with Mexico has grown in the aftermath of the USMCA, as it was only $63.3 billion in 2016, the year before Trump started his first term in office.

Associated Press writers Lorne Cook in Brussels and Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed to this report.

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 South 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.”

•••

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 South 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.”

•••

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.”

•••

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 South 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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The roughly $100 million in awards announced Wednesday would come from the Downtown Development Authority, a voter-approved special taxing district that allows the city to use a portion of tax revenue generated downtown for projects in the area. The grants are the first ones announced that will make use of hundreds of millions of dollars under the expanded DDA.

The proposals still must win approval from the City Council.

“Our priority is to help bring projects to life that will bring thousands of people back to downtown — and will create new energy and new excitement for the people who live, work and play in Denver,” said Doug Tisdale, the chair of the DDA board, during a late-morning news conference in the McNichols Building in Civic Center park.

The projects selected will support new housing, updates to downtown parks and more attainable retail space for local businesses.

The authority’s biggest cash infusion is set to be $30 million to “activate” Civic Center park. That would mean new infrastructure, lighting, garden walkways and trees to improve the park as an amenity and make it more accessible, according to a news release from the mayor’s office.

Other projects selected include:

• $23 million for the DDA to purchase two parking lots on both sides of Glenarm Place at 15th Street, next to the Denver Pavilions. The lots will serve as short-term parking with revenue going back to the DDA, and the property could be redeveloped in the future.
• $31.5 million allotted to help finance two office-to-residential conversions in the Symes Building and the University Building, which are across Champa Street from each other on the 16th Street mall. Those conversions would produce 236 units combined, much of it restricted to residents who meet income limits.
• $7 million for the McNichols Building, where officials plan to renovate the ground floor and add an arts market and a restaurant with an outdoor patio.
• $5 million for improvements at Skyline Park, including accessibility, lighting, safety features and a new performance stage.
• $2.7 million to support Green Spaces Market, which offers more affordable retail options for local businesses, nonprofits and artists.
• Awards under $1 million each for the Denver Immersive Repertory Theater, Milk Tea People and Sundae Artisan Ice Cream.

The spending is intended to be more than just an effort to make Denverites pleased with their downtown, though. It’s a key element of the city’s plan to recover from its financial crisis.

Downtown activity, which once made up a significant portion of the city’s sales tax revenue, hasn’t recovered fully from the COVID-19 pandemic. As Denver stares down a $250 million budget shortfall over the next two years, officials are hoping to revitalize the budget books.

“We think it’s important not to stand still in these moments,” Denver Mayor Mike Johnston said.

He said a primary part of the vision is to convert downtown from a business district into more of a neighborhood.

Most of the projects selected should be underway within the next 12 months, said Bill Mosher, the chief projects officer for Johnston.

In April, the authority announced it would spend $3.6 million to increase foot patrols to improve public safety downtown. The DDA still has about $475 million to dole out and more than 100 applications in the pipeline, Tisdale said.

Downtown-area voters last fall approved an expansion of the authority and authorization for it to take on up to $570 million in new debt to aid revitalization efforts across downtown. The DDA was originally formed in 2008 to help pay off debt taken out for infrastructure projects as part of the overhaul of Union Station.

The council will begin considering the first batch of proposed projects in the coming weeks.

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The property, owned by the Ladwig family since 1911, is one of the few remaining large parcels available along the Front Range, the real estate firm said. The site is priced at just over $18,000 per acre.

“This property offers a rare opportunity to own a substantial piece of land with quick access to the mountains, just 20 minutes from Downtown Denver,” Trevor Brown of Cushman & Wakefield said in statement.

Brown, Joey Dybevik and Michael Kboudi are marketing the property on behalf of the family.

The zoning allows for residential development with a minimum lot size of 10 acres. The land consists of two separate adjoining parcels totaling 811 acres. The diverse terrain includes tree-covered areas and open space.

The site is next to the roughly 4,000-acre White Ranch Park, part of Jefferson County Open Space.

A uranium mine operated on a small portion of the property several decades ago. The real estate firm said state records indicate the mine was sealed and capped in 1989.

The property is west of the Colorado 93 exit at Pine Ridge Road. Cushman & Wakefield said the property provides easy access to major transportation routes. The road to the site follows Cressman’s Gulch

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States will impose a 25% tariff on goods from India, plus an additional import tax because of India’s purchasing of Russian oil, President Donald Trump said Wednesday.

India “is our friend,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform, but its tariffs on U.S. products “are far too high.”

The Republican president added India buys military equipment and oil from Russia, enabling Moscow’s war in Ukraine. As a result, he intends to charge an additional “penalty” starting on Friday as part of the launch of his administration’s revised tariffs on multiple countries.

Trump told reporters on Wednesday the two countries were still in the middle of negotiations on trade despite the tariffs slated to begin in a few days.

“We’re talking to India now,” the president said. “We’ll see what happens.”

The Indian government said Wednesday it’s studying the implications of Trump’s tariffs announcement.

India and the U.S. have been engaged in negotiations on concluding a “fair, balanced and mutually beneficial” bilateral trade agreement over the last few months, and New Delhi remains committed to that objective, India’s Trade Ministry said in a statement.

Trump on Wednesday signed separate orders to tax imports of copper at 50% and justify his 50% tariffs on Brazil due to their criminal prosecution of former President Jair Bolsonaro and treatment of U.S. social media companies.

Trump’s view on tariffs

Trump’s announcement comes after a slew of negotiated trade frameworks with the European Union, Japan, the Philippines and Indonesia — all of which he said would open markets for American goods while enabling the U.S. to raise tax rates on imports. The president views tariff revenues as a way to help offset the budget deficit increases tied to his recent income tax cuts and generate more domestic factory jobs.

While Trump has effectively wielded tariffs as a cudgel to reset the terms of trade, the economic impact is uncertain as most economists expect a slowdown in U.S. growth and greater inflationary pressures as some of the costs of the taxes are passed along to domestic businesses and consumers.

There’s also the possibility of more tariffs coming on trade partners with Russia as well as on pharmaceutical drugs and computer chips.

Kevin Hassett, director of the White House National Economic Council, said Trump and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer would announce the Russia-related tariff rates on India at a later date.

Tariffs face European pushback

Trump’s approach of putting a 15% tariff on America’s long-standing allies in the EU is also generating pushback, possibly causing European partners as well as Canada to seek alternatives to U.S. leadership on the world stage.

French President Emmanuel Macron said Wednesday in the aftermath of the trade framework that Europe “does not see itself sufficiently” as a global power, saying in a cabinet meeting that negotiations with the U.S. will continue as the agreement gets formalized.

“To be free, you have to be feared,” Macron said. “We have not been feared enough. There is a greater urgency than ever to accelerate the European agenda for sovereignty and competitiveness.”

Seeking a deeper partnership with India

Washington has long sought to develop a deeper partnership with New Delhi, which is seen as a bulwark against China.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has established a good working relationship with Trump, and the two leaders are likely to further boost cooperation between their countries. When Trump in February met with Modi, the U.S. president said that India would start buying American oil and natural gas.

The new tariffs on India could complicate its goal of doubling bilateral trade with the U.S. to $500 billion by 2030. The two countries have had five rounds of negotiations for a bilateral trade agreement. While U.S. has been seeking greater market access and zero tariff on almost all its exports, India has expressed reservations on throwing open sectors such as agriculture and dairy, which employ a bulk of the country’s population for livelihood, Indian officials said.

The Census Bureau reported that the U.S. ran a $45.8 billion trade imbalance in goods with India last year, meaning it imported more than it exported.

At a population exceeding 1.4 billion people, India is the world’s largest country and a possible geopolitical counterbalance to China. India and Russia have close relations, and New Delhi has not supported Western sanctions on Moscow over its war in Ukraine.

The new tariffs could put India at a disadvantage in the U.S. market relative to Vietnam, Bangladesh and, possibly, China, said Ajay Sahai, director general of the Federation of Indian Export Organisations.

“We are back to square one as Trump hasn’t spelled out what the penalties would be in addition to the tariff,” Sahai said. “The demand for Indian goods is bound to be hit.”

Roy reported from New Delhi. Associated Press writers Samuel Petrequin in Paris and Darlene Superville contributed to this report.