Dave Keefe, owner of The Original Brooklyn’s just south of Empower Field, has witnessed the evolution of the neighborhoods around the Broncos’ stadiums during the 41 years he has operated his restaurant on the corner of Old West Colfax Avenue and from Morrison Road.
Like many, he doesn’t know what the future holds for the area now that the Broncos are considering building a new stadium elsewhere.
But there’s one thing he’s sure of if Empower Field ceases to be the Broncos’ home: Sun Valley will be fine.
“If they leave, this will be the biggest empty, undeveloped field in downtown Denver,” Keefe said, gesturing to the stadium and its fields filled with tailbacks. “You can just imagine what’s going to happen, especially considering the development that’s already exploding in and around Sun Valley.”
Sun Valley, the neighborhood in which Empower Field is located, has been the home of the Broncos since 1960.
But while it’s increasingly likely the team is banking more on a new stadium elsewhere, what effect will that have on Sun Valley — as well as the West Colfax neighborhood just west of Empower Field, Sloan’s Lake to the northwest and Jefferson Park? to the north?
If this move happens, the goal of neighborhood stakeholders is to more easily connect Sun Valley to changes across the highway at River Mile (the planned Elitch Gardens redevelopment) and the 55-acre redevelopment from Ball Arena. That would be a difficult task, given that the Empower Field property includes 95 acres of asphalt and a 76,125-seat stadium wedged between the busiest stretch of I-25 and two of Denver’s busiest thoroughfares, Colfax Avenue and Federal Boulevard.
“You can walk from the heart of the Ball Arena redevelopment to everything happening at the Empower Field site in 15 minutes,” Keefe said. “Now you suddenly have a new central district, even though there’s no football stadium.”
Jeanne Granville, president of the Sun Valley Community Coalition and a key figure in the Westside Stadium Community Coalition, promises that Sun Valley and surrounding neighborhoods will “adapt and make the best of whatever happens.”
The team’s lease with the Metropolitan Football Stadium District for use of Empower Field runs through 2030, although the team could trigger one or two five-year extensions to stay there until 2035 or 1940.
The Walton-Penner Ownership Group has already suspended the stadium district master plan, which would have transformed parking lots around Empower Field into a mixed-use district and entertainment district in order to fund stadium improvements. Owner Greg Penner also acknowledged in August that the team was evaluating options for a new stadium at a different site.
So the Broncos could very well be leaving their current home – the same venue where they first played at Bears Stadium, which became Mile High Stadium and was later replaced by Empower Field (under a different name) in 2001.
“Whether the stadium stays or goes, we want to make sure the values we identified in the stadium district master plan are implemented,” Granville said.
“…There would certainly be opportunities for open space, housing and hopefully affordable housing and small businesses. These are the values we had in the Stadium District Master Plan and those goals have not changed.
Valley of the Sun — one of Denver’s lowest-income neighborhoods, with about 80 percent of residents living in poverty, according to the neighborhood development website — has already undergone significant redevelopment over the past five years.
In 2016, the neighborhood received a $30 million Choice Neighborhood Initiative Implementation Grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development to implement the Sun Valley Neighborhood Transformation Plan. This development is in its final stages, with more than 300 outdated public housing units replaced and approximately 960 mixed-income housing units constructed.
Like many Denver neighborhoods, West Colfax, Sloan’s Lake, and Jefferson Park have also seen significant changes, with older single-story homes razed and replaced with modern split-level homes. Other developments, such as the STEAM on the Platte project, which involves building a mixed-use development near The Original Brooklyn’s, are underway.
A reversion clause in the contract between the Broncos and the stadium district calls for the land at Empower Field, which includes its sea of parking lots, to be returned to the city of Denver if the area is no longer used for games. the NFL. But if the Broncos leave, major questions will need to be resolved before the 95-acre parcel can be reinvented.
“Who is demolishing the stadium? Who is carrying out the environmental restoration of this property? There are things under that asphalt that we’re not ready to dig into yet, I guess, without understanding exactly what’s underneath there,” said Denver City Councilwoman Jamie Torres, whose district includes Sun Valley and West Colfax.
“…That said, this is more than likely what the city would do with this property if it were to return to the city: transform it into a reconnected neighborhood.” »
Cristian Flores, a 28-year-old West Colfax resident, agrees that losing the stadium “would be a huge change in the mood of the surrounding neighborhoods” — some good, some not.
“I’m a city boy and I love being next to the stadium, walking my dog there, waking up and seeing him every day as kind of a pillar of the neighborhood,” Flores said. “But if there wasn’t a stadium, it would be nice to have a mall nearby, kind of like a 16th Street mall with stores, restaurants and entertainment. And a closer grocery store would be nice, since it’s a problem for this part of town.
Andrew Goetz, professor of transportation, urban/regional planning and policy at the University of Denver, believes the Ball Arena project could fill the void Flores mentioned and accentuate any redevelopment that takes place at the Empower Field site.
“There’s a real opportunity there to benefit the neighborhoods and the community, so I don’t think it would be that devastating if the Broncos moved,” Goetz said.
Carrie Makarewicz, an associate professor of city and regional planning at the University of Colorado Denver who has studied Sun Valley’s transformation, said the neighborhood is “like a missing tooth in the redevelopment of all these areas” when considering the Ball Arena project. the new River Mile community and other recent advancements.
The Broncos’ move could transform a stadium she considers “a very isolated structure” into a more accessible area that would be a year-round asset to the neighborhood. Sun Valley’s disconnected street system is framed by Federal Boulevard to the west, Sixth Avenue to the south, the South Platte River to the east, and the elevated Colfax Avenue overpass intersecting its northern sector.
“(Redevelopment there) could really help downtown because it would provide a smoother connection between the westside neighborhoods and downtown, without having to go around the stadium,” Makarewicz said. “…It would be nice to patch the seams of this together so that it’s not such an example of wall-off-the-community urban renewal from the 1950s.”
Area businesses will miss out on Gameday’s economic boom, however, as in the case of The Original Brooklyn’s, Keefe said lost revenue from Broncos home games and events at Empower Field will likely be offset by money from new apartments and condos. In the blocks around Keefe’s bar alone, about 500 units will open next year.
From a resident’s perspective, a new vision for the Empower Field property would be a good fit for Jim Sweigart, an 82-year-old who has lived a few blocks west of the stadium for 42 years. He believes residents will adapt, for the better, to whatever comes next.
“Life would go on,” Sweigart said. “And there would definitely be a lot less traffic.”
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