Members of the Boulder County Commission are expected to take a vote next week on a project calling for the building of senior residential units.
The project has generated substantial controversy in Boulder not for what it is, but for where it will be built: at a north end site that has long been the home to four baseball fields.
The Iris Fields were opened in 1957 and for generations have served as the home to any number of neighborhood athletic events, including most notably games sponsored by the North Boulder Little League.
“The heart of every neighborhood is the Little League fields,” area resident Thomas Click, one of the organizers behind a group called Save Iris Fields, remarked to Denver television station KMGH earlier this year.
“When we start taking those spaces and pushing them out of the community, it really loses a lot,” continued Click. “I think people are afraid to lose that.”
The controversy started last February when Boulder County announced plans to sell a local government facility called the Boulder County North Broadway Complex.
Because that facility is on a parcel of land that also includes the Iris Fields, area residents suddenly realized those fields located at 3450 16th Street may soon be history.
Several proposals have been aired regarding the future of the site, including one from a local developer who has detailed the building of upwards of 200 affordable residential units. That proposal, which can only become reality with the demolition of the fields, comes with a $48 million price tag.
An alternative proposal put together by the Save Iris Fields group envisions a $26 million project spearheaded by a senior living developer that also calls for new housing, while preserving the fields.
November 14, 2025
By Garry Boulard
