Roughly four miles away from Denver International Airport, a new 5,000 acre development hopes to bring nearly 60,000 new residents to Aurora's northern edge.
The goal for the Aurora Highlands project is to house 23,000 families in multifamily, townhomes, and single-family homes costing anywhere from $200,000 to $1,000,000. Just give them about 20 years.
"We are hopeful that discussion right now will allow us to break ground on the infrastructure element of the piece in late 2017. So additional roads and interchanges on E470 and I-70 could start at the end of 2017," said Aurora Highlands spokesperson Amy Larson.
"We're probably not going to break homes until very early 2019. And the master plan calls for about a 20 year build-out," she said.
Which makes sense -- the 5,000 acres covers quite a bit of land:
In fact, the size of the development is why some are comparing the planned Aurora Highlands to Highlands Ranch, even though Larson says it's really not patterned after Highlands Ranch.
"To some extent it will be evocative of Highlands Ranch in the way that Highlands Ranch changed and opened up the south end of the metro area," she said. "That's what the Aurora Highlands will do for the eastern edge of Aurora -- developing that, providing the infrastructure and roads that are currently lacking between DIA and I-70."
But before the team behind the development even starts creating the infrastructure to support it, the Aurora City Council and Adams County have to sign off on the public-private partnership, the Aurora Sentinel reported.
In other words, there's still a long way to go before this is a reality. But given its proximity to the airport and its scale, it'll be an interesting one to watch.
