Billionaire Stan Kroenke’s proposed expansion of downtown Denver into the Ball Arena parking lots passed a major milestone.
The Community Planning Board approved the rezoning of roughly 70 acres of land and sent the project to the full City Council.
What's included in the massive development plan for the Ball Arena parking lots?
That includes roughly 55 acres of parking lots that would be turned into around 6,000 units of new housing. Of those, 1,080 would be income-restricted.
There would also be new hotels, office space and entertainment venues surrounding Ball Arena. The area would become a 24/7 live-work-play district.
Five bridges would connect the project to the rest of the city. Residents would enjoy 10 acres of open space, more than 10 miles of new bike lanes, a recreation center, a childcare center and more.
Buildings could be built up to 12 stories in some sections of the development. Depending on how much affordable housing the developer committed to creating, they could go infinitely higher.
The property would connect multiple central Denver neighborhoods: the Auraria Campus, Jefferson Park, Union Station, Sun Valley, LoDo and La Alma/Lincoln Park.
If built, the development would join one of several slated to reinvent the Downtown Denver skyline.
Among those are the River Mile, Kroenke’s development at the Elitch Gardens site along the South Platte River. There's also a possible new future for Burnham Yard, a mixed-use revamp of the Auraria Higher Education Campus, a potential reworking of Speer Boulevard, the reinvention of Stadium District and ongoing development in Sun Valley.
The projects, together, would more than double the population of downtown and signal a dense future for some of the few undeveloped city center lots.
So far Kroenke Sports and Entertainment has secured broad community support for the project. But it's not guaranteed.
Multiple residents testified in favor of the rezoning. Most had one condition: Kroenke must first negotiate a community benefits agreement with surrounding neighborhoods.
Representatives from Sun Valley, the Lower Downtown Neighborhood Association, the Denver Streets Partnership, La Alma Lincoln Park, the University of Colorado Denver, and Metropolitan State University are among the groups with representatives on the Ball Arena Community Benefits Agreement Committee (BACBAC). That's the group negotiating the community benefits agreement.
Both Kroenke’s representatives and community members say they're committed to negotiating a community benefits agreement.
Simon Tafoya, who sits on BACBAC, said the committee and Kroenke have made “significant progress.” Currently, the agreement ensures income-restricted housing for people making between 30 percent and 100 percent of the area median income.
Kroenke plans to create family-friendly units with at least three bedrooms each. The developer will create space for job training programs, pedestrian and bike infrastructure, childcare facilities and space for community art.
Negotiations are ongoing.
Tafoya said the committee would like to see a higher percentage of affordable rental units and more diverse housing options. He’d also like to see the affordable housing units built in the first of three phases of the project so they aren’t lost in the shuffle.
He’d like more guarantees of apprenticeship programs and stipends.
“It is vital to ensure small local businesses have opportunities to reduced rents and technical assistance,” he said.
The committee has concerns that the energy infrastructure of the new project doesn't hurt the surrounding neighborhoods.
They’d also like Kroenke to provide housing and scholarship funds for Indigenous students and descendants of residents displaced by the Auraria campus.
What's next?
The Planning Board’s decision puts the plan on track to be heard by City Council.
Council will also review whether to lift view-plain restrictions and create a metropolitan district, a special local tax.
The Ball Arena parking lot development will likely hit the South Platte River Committee on August 14.
Denverites will have a chance to weigh in at a City Council public hearing currently slated for Sept. 16.
