The quest to turn the Park Hill Golf Course into the city’s fourth-largest public park has passed a major hurdle.
On Monday, Denver City Council approved a deal to obtain the golf course from its current owner, Westside Investment Partners. The city will give the developer a plot of land by the airport in exchange for the golf course.
“This is more than a land deal — It is recognition that the city must invest not only in creating an incredible park, but also in the residents who have made the neighborhood home for generations,” Councilmember Shontel Lewis said in a statement.
But even with city council’s approval, the land swap won’t be finalized for several months, as both the city and Westside will inspect the properties during a due diligence period.
On June 2, city council will consider the rezoning of the former Northeast Park Hill golf course from private to public open space, giving the city the ability to build a regional park on the site.
Still, the city hopes to move quickly to let the public into the course.
Even before the deal is sealed, Denver plans to lease the golf course over the summer and open it as a dawn-to-dusk park for limited public use: walking trails and picnicking, with a possible disc golf course and dog park.
A larger development would take years and tens of millions of dollars to develop.
Meanwhile, the city is already planning for a regional-scale park on the land. The land could one day be home to athletic courts, playgrounds and other public facilities. The city has launched a public input effort and hired a firm to plan those efforts.
The golf course has been the subject of years of debate.
Westside purchased the land in 2019 with hopes of turning it into a major mixed-use development that would have included up to 6,000 homes, room for a grocery store, retail and a massive park.
Voters shot that project down in three separate votes, defending the conservation easement that has prevented development on the site since the late 1990s. Once the city owns the land, the conservation easement will be dissolved, allowing the city to build a park.
The exchange marks a big change of plans for Westside Investment, which bought the course in 2019.
It will trade its land in the city core for a large property near Denver International Airport. The land at 56th Avenue in Adams County is zoned for industrial uses and not the sort of dense residential development Westside intended to create at Colorado Boulevard and 35th Street.
