Denver Summit FC may be named for the state’s capital, but it could still cancel its plans to build a permanent home in Denver — a message the team sent publicly as the Denver City Council debates plans to provide city funding for the stadium.
A week after the council delayed a key vote that would release $50 million in city funds for land acquisition and infrastructure construction at the site of Denver Summit FC’s future stadium, the team’s ownership said it was considering options elsewhere.
“Given the challenges we have faced in the Denver City Council process, we are currently pursuing a parallel path regarding the stadium site and engaging with other jurisdictions outside Denver,” a statement said.
The team isn’t pulling out of its Denver plans — it said it will continue to work with the city on the plan to build in the Baker neighborhood, which has been months in the making.
But its statement could put pressure on council members to speed up the approval process. The team has promised the National Women’s Soccer League that it will open a permanent stadium in 2028, and the team says it needs approvals in hand by the end of the year to stay on track.
“Losing this team would be devastating for the thousands of people who have already fallen in love with this franchise and the small businesses who are counting on the boost it will bring,” Johnston said in a statement.
Councilmember Flor Alvidrez, who represents the Baker neighborhood, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Council members delayed the vote after Johnston’s office presented documents they said lacked key financial details about the city’s plan to purchase the land underneath the stadium and build improvements on it. While the city has officially set aside $50 million for that, it hasn’t specified how the money will be spent.
“I'm just saying that when I approve something, I want to see the whole entire package,” Council President Amanda Sandoval said last week.
Sandoval said the fine details are necessary given a previous incident where the mayor’s office quietly altered the deal to swap land with a developer to obtain Park Hill Park without getting the council’s explicit approval. The city granted the developer more land near the airport than was initially disclosed.
A potential move away from Denver would put fans and the city stuck between a rock and hard place.
Team owners have already sunk hundreds of millions of dollars into Summit FC’s newfound existence, mostly to secure the new franchise from NWSL.
At the center of that investment is the planned stadium in Baker. It’s a vision that Denver’s city leaders have bought into, hoping that a surge of support for a professional women’s sports team could help revitalize the economy and a plot of land that’s sat vacant for decades near Interstate 25 and Broadway.
“We wanted it to be centrally located in Denver,” said Johnston when the stadium’s location was announced. “We wanted to be in a place where it could catalyze a real neighborhood of development around it.”
While the city would invest tens of millions to make the stadium happen, it would also retain ownership of the land if the team ever left.
The city’s finance department published a study earlier this year that found that over the next 30 years, the stadium could generate over $500 million in tax revenue from spending in and near the stadium. If the stadium moves from Denver, the hypothetical tax revenue also disappears.
However, it’s also worth noting that the city is considering a deal that would divert much of that new tax revenue back to the project to pay for certain construction costs. Some economists warn that public investment in stadiums rarely pays off and can be a burden to taxpayers, despite promises of an economic boom.
Besides the $50 million for the site itself, the city has also set aside another $20 million in investments around the stadium and could pay for a pedestrian bridge that connects the stadium to the nearby RTD station.
The team has not said where else it could build a stadium, or how far along those plans are. Any competing proposal would also have to move fast to meet the team’s timeline.
The team is currently building a temporary stadium in Centennial, which it hopes to complete during the 2026 season. The team will play its debut game at Empower Field at Mile High on March 28.
The team touted the Baker stadium site as widely accessible — it connects to three RTD light rail lines and several bus routes. A move to another city in the metro area could make getting to the stadium harder for Denverites and other nearby residents who rely on public transit for mobility.
Over 8,500 season tickets have been sold so far. Season ticket holders will have first dibs on future season tickets, including when the team moves to wherever its permanent stadium will be.
