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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“It’s basically a shell, they acquired a shell. It doesn’t have electrical, it doesn’t have plumbing,” said Matt Call of NavPoint Real Estate.

The latest sale of the 12,000-square-foot building on the edge of downtown Denver happened earlier this month, when records show Bernard Faraone paid $975,000, or $83 per square foot, to buy the property from Beacon Church.

Around the same time, Faraone’s architect at M Moser Associates submitted plans to the city proposing to turn the one-story, 92-year-old brick building into a nightclub and restaurant space.

Farone did not respond to a request for comment. Neither did the church, which operates in Uptown at 1615 N. Ogden St.

The plans call for three-pronged redevelopment of the space, which would be called Chapter. The main level would hold a 5,500-square-foot restaurant, while the 6,200-square-foot basement would house a club. A rooftop space also would be added.

Both the basement and main level have 14-foot ceilings with a “raw and industrial” feel, according to Call, who represented the church in the sale this month.

“I don’t know the last time someone operated there,” he said.

The church purchased the property in 2021 for $1.5 million, according to public records. Pastor CB Barthlow told Denverite in 2023 that the organization hoped to fix up and operate in the building, but ultimately determined that was too costly.

The building still bears the name of Carson Press, a onetime occupant that published guides and books about Denver’s early growth around the turn of the 20th century.

Call said he listed the property for sale about six months ago for $1.45 million. He had interest from retail, restaurant and office users, including another nightclub concept, and planned to speed up the process by putting it up for auction.

“The auction inevitably forces everything into a funnel and forces decision-making from anyone interested,” he said.

Faraone’s group sent over an enticing offer and “usurped” the auction, which would have started bidding at $250,000, Call said. He’d expected the building to sell “in the neighborhood” of $1 million.

“When you can take the chance of uncertainty off the table, that’s what you want to do.”

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The national trash company has leased several buildings at 3600 E. 48th Ave. in the Elyria-Swansea neighborhood since 2005 without much problem, according to a lawsuit it filed last week.

“Waste Management Recycle America faithfully paid all rent and performed its lease obligations,” it wrote. “But in 2024, (Armstrong Capital Development) purchased the buildings and, unlike the prior landlord, immediately demanded that WMRA perform almost $2 million in repairs, despite knowing the condition of the buildings before its purchase.”

Armstrong, a private equity firm headquartered in Greenwood Village, paid $18.3 million for the property early last year. On July 21, it gave Waste Management an ultimatum, according to the company: Either make more than $1 million in repairs or be kicked out.

“The threatened eviction has ramifications far beyond just the relationship of WMRA and ACD,” according to the former’s lawsuit. “Since a huge amount of recycling flows through the WMRA 48th Street facility, the threatened eviction would disrupt an estimated 10 to 15 percent of all recycling in the Denver metropolitan area. That is a serious public impact.”

Jarrett Armstrong, the CEO of Armstrong Capital Development, declined to talk about that.

“Although we don’t agree with Waste Management’s assertions in the lawsuit, our practice is not to comment on pending litigation,” Armstrong told BusinessDen. When asked if he will be evicting Waste Management from 3600 E. 48th, he said, “Any potential eviction of Waste Management similarly concerns pending litigation and ACD does not comment.”

Waste Management’s spokespeople and lawyers did not answer requests for an interview.

The dispute between tenant and landlord concerns a warehouse roof that dates to the 1940s and has leaked since Waste Management moved in, according to the company. It has paid for several roof repairs and replacements over the years, its lawsuit explains.

In 2023, Waste Management signed a lease through 2026, with the expectation it will move to its new Aurora location after that. Then, Armstrong bought the property and almost immediately demanded that Waste Management make $1.9 million in repairs, the tenant alleges.

“While WMRA was surprised by this sudden change from the position of any prior landlord, and disputed the extent of repairs demanded, WMRA has substantially complied with a large portion of Armstrong’s demands” by landscaping, painting and repairing the warehouse.

Still, its landlord is demanding more — and unfairly threatening to evict, the tenant claims.

“Waste Management vigorously opposes the defendant’s improper attempt to use eviction proceedings as leverage … and thereby threaten continued waste recycling for large segments of Denver and the surrounding communities,” according to the July 23 lawsuit.

Waste Management’s lawyers are Dana Eismeier and Michael Ley at Burns Figa & Will.

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It could be pretty transformational for us,” said Chris Gleissner, director of site design and neighborhood development for Denver’s Community Planning and Development Department.

Gleissner said the department is moving to a “one-and-done” process for concept plans, the first formal step in the development process in which developers pitch their initial drawings and proposals to the city.

In the past, these plans could go back and forth for several rounds, with city staff offering comments and an applicant seeking to address them.

“You might spend a lot of time in concept review cycles, working one particular issue, while at the same time feeling like you’re not progressing other known issues with your site,” Gleissner said, adding that the average has been 2.3 review cycles.

Developers can’t move on to the next step – the submission of a site development plan – until the concept plan is approved.

Under the new one-and-done process, unless an applicant requests to stay in the concept phase, all projects will enter the site development phase after a single city review.

“If you were going to assign an average to a concept plan review, it’s probably a good four to six months in the previous state, and this would significantly shorten that to a matter of one to two months,” Gleissner said.

The city receives concept plans in various forms – some are closer to napkin sketches, while others look like full-on site development plans.

The expectation now is that applicants will submit as much information as they have. The city will give one well-rounded set of comments and things will get ironed out in the next phase.

“That could be significant for our applicants. That represents multiple months of time savings,” Gleissner said.

The change comes on the heels of numerous others within Denver’s planning and permitting apparatus. In April, Mayor Mike Johnston announced the creation of the Denver Permitting Office, which aims to funnel reviews from multiple departments into a singular agency that operates on a 18o-day “shot clock.”

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Sevcik, along with her husband and two friends, purchased a 1,500-square-foot retail condo for $120,000 on the ground floor of the Circa West condominium building at the southwest corner of West Colfax Avenue and Vrain Street earlier this month.

Sevcik said the group stepped up to buy it after another deal, which would have seen the space become a laundromat that sells beer, fell through.

“To me, that was not necessarily going to change the trajectory of West Colfax … This play for us is as defensive as it is offensive,” Sevcik said.

The businesswoman and president of the West Colfax Business Improvement District runs three businesses across the street from the real estate she just bought. She wants to create a community-oriented space for creatives that is also a flexible event space.

One corner will serve as a dedicated photo and video studio, which can be rented by the hour. Adjacent to that will be an area for working and meetings. Sevick anticipates that it will draw a crowd of self-employed marketing and advertising professionals.

“[It’s] a community hub that centers around marketing, branding and PR, that has modular components that can offer small events,” Sevcik said.

Sevcik is teaming up with her husband, Tim Samp. The pair run Duality, a fitness studio across the street where “Orangetheory meets CorePower.” Next door is her cafe, Side Pony, serving up coffee and cocktails. And on the other side is Original Glam, a medical spa.

“All my businesses over there need a space to conduct their meetings … I’m at Side Pony talking about my staff that’s working behind the bar, and it’s not private and it’s loud,” she said.

Sevcik said they only need to make about $1,000 a month to cover the space’s expenses, so there’s less pressure to refine the plan before opening. Instead, she plans to “reverse engineer” the place a bit, letting her clients and customers use it and tell her what it needs. It’ll cost about $150,000 to build out the spot.

“This place doesn’t have to make a lot of money,” she said.

The other duo behind the buy are Chelsea and Juan Forero;, who run a local marketing company Forero Creatives. They plan to provide a wide range of services to companies and individuals looking to do advertising.

“Our little tagline that we have right now is ‘cultivating spaces for creatives,’” Chelsea said.

“It’s a place where businesses and people in this corridor can come and collectively work together and build whatever they’re building a little bit more.”

Circa West was developed by local firm Flywheel Capital out of a former assisted living facility called Golden Manor. An executive with Denver’s Bow River Capital signed the sale paperwork on behalf of the Flywheel-formed LLC. Flywheel and Bow River didn’t respond to requests for comment.

A pair of Flywheel development sites flanking the building landed in foreclosure last year after its Arizona-based lender initiated the proceedings. That process has yet to be resolved.

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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.

Programs like BuildStrong Academy offer training and support to aspiring female tradespeople.

Victoria Son, a 2022 BuildStrong graduate, decided to transition from a potential career in dentistry to become a licensed general contractor.

Inspired by her parents, Son discovered her passion for woodworking, completed her training, and launched her residential remodeling business, Vee’s Fix-It Service. She aspires to become a custom home builder.

BuildStrong Academy, a Denver-based nonprofit, connects job seekers with the construction industry’s needs. It offers an 80-hour Construction Skills Bootcamp, which lasts five weeks and serves as a prerequisite for advanced courses. Last year, 226 students completed the program, with about 30% being women.

Kristin Davenport, who oversees the boot camp, credits the increase in female enrollment to a growing awareness of the lucrative potential in construction careers.

“We’re seeing more women realize that these jobs not only pay well, but they also offer fulfilling careers,” she said.

The boot camp caters to individuals from various backgrounds, including those with minimal construction experience. It offers opportunities to pursue apprenticeships in trades such as electrical work, HVAC, plumbing, and welding.

Nationally, women comprise approximately 14% of the 7.7 million people employed in the U.S. construction industry.

The construction industry continues to face challenges, with only 13% of construction companies owned by women.

Chris Regis, owner of Domani Development, said even after 33 years building and remodeling homes, she still constantly feels pressure to prove herself.

“You always have to show you know your stuff,” she said. “You have to be strong and confident, or people will walk all over you.

Regis recently completed a custom home build at 1860 E. Cedar Ave. in Denver. She worked hand-in-hand with architect Katrina Eckelhoff, principal of StudioHoff Architecture, and Bree Halax, owner of Halax Interiors, to create the $8.5 million home, featuring six bedrooms and eight bathrooms, built with wire-brushed cedar, local stone, and raw steel accents.

The women, who call themselves the dream team, enjoy working together and said their experience and collaboration skills make executing a complex project like the home on Cedar easier.

“We know each other and trust each other’s opinions,” Halax said.

Hoff said that sometimes, when she designs a home, that’s the end of her role in the project, likening it to sending a child off to college and then never hearing any progress reports.

But working with Regis and Halax is a different experience. “We have a good interactive back and forth to make the project a reality.”

Son hopes that the push to increase the number of women in construction jobs will help alleviate some of the challenges women face.

“Half my (BuildStrong) class was women,” she said. “Hopefully, the stigmas and barriers are being rewritten.”

The news and editorial staffs of The Denver Post had no role in this post’s preparation.