DMX blared suddenly over the speakers and Broncos president Damani Leech had a joke at the ready.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe told them to turn the music up when the stadium questions started,\u201d he said with a smile.<\/p>\n
Just a humorous coincidence, really, as Leech spoke with reporters Saturday morning ahead of the Broncos\u2019 second open training camp practice.<\/p>\n
Stadium questions, decisions, sites and timelines, however, are at the forefront for the club as it pushes toward the 2025 season.<\/p>\n
Leech again said the Broncos don\u2019t have a set timeline for deciding if or where a new stadium might get built. He held to that even as recent reporting around Burnham Yard<\/a>, a former railyard south of Empower Field, shows the team has bought land in the area<\/a> and done extensive work \u2014 from conversations with neighboring Denver Water<\/a> to inquiring about urban renewal tax incentives<\/a> \u2014 vetting the site.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have not made any decisions about a preferred site,\u201d Leech said when asked directly about Burnham Yard. \u201cWhat you\u2019ve heard from us is really at a city level. City conversations, city viewing. Denver, Aurora, Lone Tree. Beyond that, the level of the detail there, no decisions have been made.\u201d<\/p>\n In early April, Leech told reporters at the NFL spring meeting in Florida that the club had \u201ca healthy amount of pressure\u201d from a timeline perspective, given the amount of work that has to happen before shovels even go in the ground for a build.<\/p>\n Denver Mayor Mike Johnston has been adamant about keeping the team in the city and told The Denver Post recently, \u201cI feel like we have a chance to do something special and we\u2019re going to work hard at it to get it done. And I feel like we\u2019re close, but I think that\u2019s all I can say now.\u201d<\/p>\n Leech said Saturday the team has no timeline for announcing its decision or even a preferred stadium site.<\/p>\n \u201cCertainly respect the excitement and enthusiasm of the mayor. He\u2019s a big fan of the Broncos,\u201d Leech said. \u201c\u2026 Both the mayor and (Colorado Gov. Jared Polis) have been sincere in wanting to do what\u2019s right for the Broncos and they understand the role the Broncos play in this community, and so we\u2019ve had very good conversations with them. That being said, we\u2019re not going to put a timetable on it. This is a 30-, 40-, 50-year decision that we don\u2019t want to rush by a matter of weeks here or there.<\/p>\n \u201cSo we\u2019re going to continue to do our due diligence until we feel like we\u2019re in a position to make the right decision.\u201d<\/p>\n Leech also said the Walton-Penner Family Ownership Group believes Empower Field is in good shape right now, but added, \u201cThat being said, five more years and it\u2019ll be a 30-year-old stadium. When you look around and what\u2019s happening to stadiums built in that era, some younger, and they\u2019re either being built new or going through significant renovations like Carolina and Jacksonville.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s certainly something we\u2019re thinking about.\u201d<\/p>\n HQ progress<\/p>\n The Broncos\u2019 new training facility and headquarters is impossible to miss at training camp as it gets constructed just away from the practice fields.<\/p>\n Leech said they recently finished the first hard-hat tour, and the project remains on schedule.<\/p>\n The Broncos plan to have a topping-out ceremony in August when the highest beam gets put in place. Then the structure will be enclosed by November.<\/p>\n \u201cSo from a weather standpoint, they\u2019ll be able to do all the interiors and get us to a situation where we\u2019re able to move in by May of next year,\u201d Leech said.<\/p>\n He added it was too early to tell exactly what the training camp operation will look like next year.<\/p>\n