Mayor Mike Johnston’s promise to turn the Park Hill Golf Course into the city’s fourth-largest park is moving forward, but it still isn’t a sure thing.
Denver City Council members on Tuesday gave preliminary approval to key parts of the plan.
The golf course is currently owned by a private developer, Westside Investment Partners. The city has proposed trading another piece of property for the land. That proposal drew support from a council committee, as did a proposal to rezone the property for use as a public park.
The Mayor’s Office expects the land swap and a rezoning to be approved by the full council by June. Meanwhile, plans are in motion. The city is already set to spend hundreds of thousands on early plans for a major regional park on the site. The city is also hoping to allow public access to the land as early as this summer.
“We feel very confident in the agreement going forward,” said the mayor’s spokesperson Jon Ewing.
But despite those big plans, the city will not own the property until September at the earliest. Even if the city council approves the deal, it will be subject to 90 days of due diligence, which could allow either party to bail if issues arise with the golf course or with the property that Westside is set to receive near Denver International Airport.
Johnston’s administration is so confident that the city has already begun to work — and spend — on the project.
The city signed a contract for up to $1.5 million with the global design firm Sasaki, according to a document obtained through a public records request.
The company, which has multiple Denver projects in the works, is tasked with leading a park visioning plan on land the city does not yet own.
The city and its planning partner launched meetings with neighbors and a survey about the park’s future last week. The so-called “Park Hill Park” now has a website of its own.
Denver’s Six-Year Capital Improvement Plan hints at what the city might spend on the project: a total of roughly $200 million, broken up over two phases.
The plan also mentions another $50 million that could be spent on a “Park Hill Open Space Fieldhouse,” though Ewing says it’s way too early to predict whether that will come to fruition.
“It really is just an idea that someone floated,” he said in a text. “No dollars allocated. Literally just a community idea.”
Meanwhile, Parks and Recreation has started surveying the land. One early accomplishment: The agency and Denver Animal Control successfully caught Park Hill Dave, a German shepherd who had been squatting the former golf course.
Parks director Jolon Clark has adopted Park Hill Dave and plans to make him part of the agency’s workforce, chasing geese in public parks.
Preserving the land as open space has had widespread public support.
The land is protected by a city-owned conservation easement, established in the ‘90s. The easement requires the land is used as an 18-hole, regulation-length golf course. The easement prevented Westside from developing the land and ultimately was upheld by voters in multiple elections.
If Denver takes ownership of the land, the easement will be dissolved under state law, since the city will own both the land and the easement, city officials said.
Once the easement is gone, the city will have the power to turn the 155 acres into parkland.
If all goes as planned, the city will acquire the land this fall.
The city plans to trade another city-owned property for the long-shuttered Park Hill Golf Course. In the proposed deal, the city would give Westside a similarly sized, similarly assessed parcel near Denver International Airport. That property has no utilities, and its current zoning doesn’t allow housing development.
The land Westside is receiving is worth $12.7 million, according to a city assessment. The company bought the Park Hill Golf Course for $24 million in 2019.
The land-swap deal is complicated, requiring buy-in from Adams County, Denver International Airport, the Federal Aviation Administration and the City and County of Denver.
City Council may have to revisit issues related to utilities and easements on the airport-adjacent land in the summer, depending on Westside’s development plans.
Council members support the plan.
City Council could kill the land swap or rezoning, though either would be highly unlikely. Council members have had few criticisms of Johnston’s project.
Council President Amanda Sandoval, who represents District 1, raised the concern of green gentrification in Northeast Park Hill, with the park attracting new residents and businesses and accelerating displacement in a historically Black, working-class neighborhood.
But she supported the rezoning in committee and also committed to working with District 8 Councilmember Shontel Lewis, who represents the area, on trying to avoid a development rush near the park.
Council doesn’t have the final word on whether the deal goes through. Westside and the city will need to sign the contract.
After that is executed, both parties would have 90 days to do due diligence, examining the quality of the land, the zoning, the possibility of utilities and environmental issues.
During this period, either party could conceivably pull out.
A rough version of the park may open before Denver owns the land.
The city maintains it’s on track to open the park for limited use by summer. To do so, it will have to sign a lease with Westside. Ewing says no money would be exchanged for the lease.
But even leasing is not a done deal. The city will have to square up insurance for the land.
Denver Parks and Rec head Clark says if the land is rented, the city will install low-cost elements like trails and picnic tables and open by summer, while planning is carried out through the end of the year and construction planning and design begin in 2026.
Meanwhile, the former golf course is fenced off, with a vandalized sprinkler system, dried-up trees and grass, and a surveillance camera flashing blue lights in the parking lot.
Even the clubhouse, a longtime gathering spot for Northeast Park Hill community celebrations, church services and weddings, has been damaged by vandals, with piping and electrical equipment stripped.
Currently, the property is unlit.
Until the park is built out and lighting is installed, “we will likely manage it as a dusk-to-dawn park,” Clark said.
Johnston has been talking about the Park Hill Golf Course acquisition as a done deal.
In January, the mayor joined park proponents, including former Mayor Wellington Webb, who declared victory in their bitterly won fight against Westside’s mixed-use development plans.
Johnston had supported Westside’s development plan before taking office, but he acknowledged that voters rejected the development.
Then he promptly took an early-2025 win, announcing the Park Hill Golf Course would be a park — more than half a year before the deal will likely be finalized.
“Announcing large projects in this way is standard practice,” Ewing said. “We would not have made this announcement if we didn’t feel very confident about the agreement going forward.”
If Johnston’s administration succeeds in creating the largest park in Denver since Washington Park opened in 1911, it will be a legacy-defining project for the first-term mayor, who has doggedly insisted he’s making Denver “vibrant” more times than anyone can count.
Johnston has been pointing to the Park Hill Golf Course park conversion as proof that his administration delivers on its promises.
But for that public-parks win to be more than a vibrant dream, he needs dried ink on the contract and the land in the city’s hands.
