If he could go back,\u00a0 Herman would tell his former self to abandon ship rather than endure the Burnham mess again.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were days where I was like, \u2018I\u2019ve made a huge mistake,’\u201d Herman said.<\/p>\n
The Broncos have now become the most visible entrepreneur to identify Burnham Yard as a ripe pocket for redevelopment, continuing to march forward with the railyard as their preferred site for a new stadium district in Denver. Beyond a finalized agreement to buy the railyard itself, property records compiled by The Denver Post show the Broncos have been tied to at least $186 million in land purchases in the surrounding area, with the expressed goal to build out a mixed-use district around a new stadium. For now, unlike Herman and its neighbors, the organization does not need to concern itself with potential break-ins.<\/p>\n
The Broncos\u2019 path to a successful stadium-anchored development at Burnham, though, is fraught with larger-scale hurdles surrounding their planned stadium opening in 2031 \u2014 stemming directly from the same reasons they keyed in on the site in the first place.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m so skeptical,\u201d Herman said, \u201cthat they\u2019re going to pull it off in time.\u201d<\/p>\n
A simple building remodel took Herman a year and a half due to city processes. People have broken into his warehouses on multiple occasions, and stripped the copper wire from his air-conditioning units. He has bled money on damage control. And on one occasion, he walked into his primary building at North Osage to find his window shattered and a man without any clothes standing in the middle of the room.<\/p>\n
Herman has stuck it out, one of several owners who have poured money into new development around the railyard in recent years. Directly east of Burnham, The Refractory \u2014 a creative-warehouse space located at 890 Navajo St.<\/a> \u2014 has seen interest from potential businesses ranging from a jiu jitsu gym to an indoor golf facility, broker Russell Gruber said. Directly adjacent to Herman\u2019s property, Memphis Orion and Adam Lerner are leading a $27 million development of a wellness center dubbed Coba Bathhouse;<\/a> they saw a \u201cgiant wave\u201d in the area, Orion said , and felt they could surf it. And the Broncos are the latest to hop on, because of such tantalizing development potential.<\/p>\n The modern era of stadium construction has popularized the \u201cstadium district,\u201d a mini-neighborhood that relies on mixed-use offerings around the stadium itself to generate revenue outside of gamedays. The Broncos are buying up over 150 acres around Burnham to build out that concept in Denver, similar to Kroenke Sports & Entertainment\u2019s plans at Ball Arena<\/a>. But such a large-scale development in an area primarily zoned for industrial use has inevitably entangled the Broncos in a web of lengthy city processes, community-benefits-agreement negotiations with the recently established Burnham Yard Community Action coalition<\/a>, and soon-to-be-costly negotiations with private landowners and the public utility, Denver Water, that have yet to be resolved.<\/p>\n And that\u2019s just the first wave, as both the organization and the city will need an immaculately phased development at Burnham to justify the investment there.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile our current focus is on the community-benefits-agreement process, the long-term goal is for Burnham Yard to contribute to a connected, mixed-use community to the La Alma Lincoln Park and Baker neighborhoods,\u201d Broncos president Damani Leech told The Post. \u201cIn terms of selecting the Burnham Yard site, we think it\u2019s important for the Broncos to remain in Denver.<\/p>\n \u201cThough a project of this scope on a former railyard presents some challenges, it aligns with our overall vision to create Denver\u2019s next great neighborhood, the future home of the Denver Broncos and a year-round destination that delivers meaningful impact for the city.\u201d<\/p>\n Why the Broncos \u2018have to make the mixed-use district work\u2019<\/p>\n Twenty miles south, a 440-acre expanse of open dirt spills out below the intersection of East Lincoln Avenue and Interstate 25 in Lone Tree, the site that was \u2014 and could still be<\/a> \u2014 the Broncos\u2019 Plan B.<\/p>\n Over the last two years, the organization has done its due diligence<\/a> on the Lone Tree City Center, a massive planned mixed-use sprawl that Douglas County has openly campaigned for<\/a> as a possible home for the Broncos.<\/p>\n Lone Tree has already approved a sub-area plan for the Lone Tree City Center, and the area is zoned for large mixed-use development. The city \u201cprides itself on being business-friendly,\u201d Mayor Melissa Harmon told The Post, and aims to provide \u201cclear expectations, timely feedback and response, and always a predictable permitting process.\u201d And the alignment with the Broncos \u2014 or any other catalyst developer \u2014 is obvious: the city would make sure the integration was as smooth as possible, Harmon pointed.<\/p>\n \u201cThey have our phone number, and we know \u2014 I joked with Damani (Leech), I said, \u2018You still say preferred, you know,’\u201d Harmon said, referring to the Broncos\u2019 current positioning at Burnham.<\/p>\n \u201cBut in all honesty, of course, we always knew that Denver and Burnham Yards was their preferred and No. 1 site for many reasons,\u201d she continued, \u201cand it was really such an honor to be able to have the conversations, but also really get national attention for this piece of property.\u201d<\/p>\n To Harmon\u2019s point, the Walton-Penner ownership group selected Burnham over Lone Tree or Aurora specifically to keep the franchise in Denver. And the specific location makes sense, as several real estate and development experts told The Post, because of the immediate proximity to higher-population-density neighborhoods around Denver that can therefore attract tenants and foot traffic alike.<\/p>\n \u201cObviously, like, the Broncos chose to be here instead of going to some suburban location,\u201d said Ryan Meeks, founder of Denver-based Bosk Urban Design. \u201cAnd so \u2026 they have to make the mixed-use district work, right?\u201d<\/p>\n The appeal of building a stadium district at the 150-plus-year-old Burnham railyard<\/a>\u00a0lies in built-in historical and industrial aesthetics<\/a> that the Broncos have highlighted since their very first Large Development Review pre-submission in November 2025. The organization has repeatedly cited the\u00a0<\/a>refurbishment of the site\u2019s locomotive shop<\/a> as a key component of its initial design plans. In that vein, the Broncos are the largest piece of a greater transformation around Burnham; a slew of developers have bought warehouses to repurpose for non-industrial uses in recent years, commercial broker Gruber told The Post.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a more challenging site, in some ways,\u201d Broncos owner Greg Penner told The Post in September. \u201cBut we think it creates an opportunity to create something special.\u201d<\/p>\n Those challenges, though, are substantial in the short term. Penner said in late March that the Broncos want to have \u201call of (their) ducks lined up\u201d before officially shedding the preferred-site label for a Burnham development.<\/p>\n That calls for progress on a legally binding community-benefits agreement with the recently finalized Burnham Yard Community Action coalition, for one<\/a>. That calls for progress on negotiations with Denver Water around the utility\u2019s relocation, which has been further complicated<\/a> by community pushback<\/a> against the utility\u2019s plans for a potential facility on Lot M of the existing Empower Field stadium site.<\/p>\n And that calls for progress toward a resolution with SRM Concrete, which owns a large concrete plant smack-dab in the middle of the Broncos\u2019 stadium district plans.<\/p>\n Most important of all are the dominoes that\u2019ll fall once the city\u2019s Department of Community Planning and Development completes a small-area plan for the site, which a source with knowledge of the process said should be finalized late in 2026 or early in 2027.<\/p>\n The Denver Urban Renewal Authority will only begin work on an urban-renewal plan at Burnham once that small-area plan is finished, DURA Interim Executive Director Bill Pruter told The Post. That urban-renewal plan will determine\u00a0whether\u00a0tax-increment financing is approved for the Burnham development<\/a>, which Pruter said he expects the Broncos will seek.<\/p>\n Penner and Denver\u2019s brass have made clear the stadium itself won\u2019t introduce any new taxes. But if the larger 150-acre site is approved for a TIF district by Denver\u2019s City Council, the infrastructure around the stadium can be paid for in some capacity by borrowing against future growth in property taxes within that district<\/a> \u2014 a form of tax break.<\/p>\n Essentially, the Broncos can wind up using the potential for a larger-scale stadium district at Burnham to actually pay for the stadium itself.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is incredibly typical in stadium ancillary development,\u201d said Geoffrey Propheter, a professor in the University of Colorado Denver\u2019s School of Public Affairs and an expert in stadium financing<\/a>. \u201cYou build the stadium first, and then all the non-stadium stuff that you\u2019re actually using to try to convince lawmakers to support this \u2014 all of this comes in years 10, 20, 30. And they all come with a promise.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe track record for delivering on these promises by teams in development,\u201d Propheter said later, \u201cis shaky. And that\u2019s being super generous.\u201d<\/p>\n Why the phasing and selection of district features matter<\/p>\n Fortunately for Denver, the Walton-Penner Group has built a considerable track record of delivering on its promises.<\/p>\n Look to Denver, for one, where Broncos owners Penner and Carrie Walton Penner have revitalized the NFL franchise and just invested significant capital into the Colorado Rockies<\/a>. And look across the country to Bentonville, Arkansas, where the small-town birthplace of Walmart<\/a> has been transformed into a mini-metropolis at the Walton family\u2019s investment.<\/p>\n Nelson Worldwide senior vice president Lamar Wakefield, an expert in mixed-use development who helped design The Battery stadium district in Atlanta, told The Post that he\u2019s working on a current development in Bentonville for the Waltons.<\/p>\n \u201cThey really want to see a wide range of housing options,\u201d Wakefield said. \u201cAnd I was really pleased to hear that. They understand that if you can make it attainable, but the whole neighborhood itself has all these wide ranges \u2014 maybe that single mom with three kids raising them in that environment is a little bit different \u2026 so they embrace that. I was very impressed.\u201d<\/p>\n The Broncos will likely focus, in the initial phase, on the stadium and surrounding infrastructure before a 2031 opening at Burnham, multiple experts in stadium-district development told The Post. Slow-playing other aspects of the district for too long, though, would do a \u201chuge disservice,\u201d nearby warehouse owner John Victor said, to both community and city investment in the development. And the Broncos will face the challenge of establishing a center of gravity where there isn\u2019t one at Burnham \u2014 different from KSE\u2019s task of developing a district around the nearby Ball Arena<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s the secret sauce there,\u201d said Matt Mahoney, KSE\u2019s senior vice president of development, \u201cwhen we\u2019re talking about neighborhoods that just do not exist. I mean, both these properties \u2014 our property is a surface parking lot. We\u2019re fortunate to actually have an arena already built.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Broncos have a much tougher, steeper hill to climb. Because they want to create a neighborhood, but they also have to build a new stadium at the same time of establishing a sense of place there.\u201d<\/p>\n The organization\u2019s initial infrastructure master plan<\/a> outlines that the Broncos would complete vertical construction of an \u201centertainment zone\u201d in time for the stadium\u2019s 2031 opening. The key there is what mix of mixed-use development (housing, office, retail, dining, hospitality) the Broncos will prioritize within that specific zone. Wakefield, who helped design The Battery Atlanta \u2014 a gold standard of mixed-use stadium development that the Broncos\u2019 brass toured while identifying stadium-district ideas \u2014 emphasized the initial importance of establishing residential units to build an on-site customer base.<\/p>\n Any dreams about the district\u2019s makeup, though, will be clouded by the current Denver market. Ortiz said building hotels would be an initial priority. But hotel-occupancy rates in metro Denver still haven\u2019t rebounded to pre-COVID-19 levels, according to statistics from Visit Denver<\/a>. RC Myles, a broker with Denver-based Pinnacle Real Estate Advisors, said he anticipates the Burnham district won\u2019t prioritize much office development, as office vacancies in downtown Denver have risen sharply since 2019<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s so many missing pieces to this,\u201d said Carrie Makarewicz, chair of CU Denver\u2019s urban and regional planning department. \u201cI mean, they\u2019re moving forward in the typical style of a private developer \u2014 you acquire low-cost land in a strategic location, you build the revenue generators first, you tap into as much public funding you can get \u2026 and then you work on the immediate surroundings for your project, but you don\u2019t take into consideration the city and regional demand for retail, apartments and entertainment.<\/p>\n \u201cLike, we\u2019re cannibalizing all of our districts around the city.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Denver](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/TDP-L-burnhamyard111925-cha-1251.jpg\")
Denver Broncos president Damani Leech attends a Burnham Yard Small Area Plan community meeting at La Alma Recreation Center in Denver on Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2025. (Photo by Hyoung Chang\/The Denver Post)<\/p>\n![\"Train](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/TDP-L-BURNHAM-YARD-AREA-JUNE-2026-HJD09940.jpg\")
Train tracks lead away from the Burnham Yard site in Denver on Friday, June 5, 2026. (Photo by Harmon Dobson\/The Denver Post)<\/p>\n![\"Denver](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/TDP-L-BRONCOS-TITANSAO2_9563x.jpg\")
Denver Broncos owners Carrie Walton Penner and Greg Penner before a game against the Tennessee Titans at Empower Field at Mile High on Sunday, Sept. 7, 2025. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz\/The Denver Post)<\/p>\n![\"LEFT:](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/TDP-L-bathhouse-comp-01xA.jpg\")
LEFT: Owner of Coba Bathouse, Memphis Orion, poses for a portrait inside his mobile sauna on Osage Street near Burnham Yard in Denver on Friday, June 5, 2026. Orion and partner Adam Lerner are leading a $27 million development project for Coba Bathhouse. RIGHT: The temporary lounge at Coba Bathouse June 5, 2026. (Photos by Harmon Dobson\/The Denver Post)<\/p>\n