A series of public input meetings are expected to accelerate in the months ahead regarding the building of a new stadium home for the Denver Broncos.
The long-anticipated project now seems almost certain to be built at the site of the Burnham Yards, which served as a railyard for more than 150 years. The Union Pacific railroad ceased operations there nearly a decade ago, with the Colorado Department of Transportation purchasing the land in 2021.
In a statement, Greg Penner, chief executive officer of the Broncos, remarked: “We couldn’t be more excited about Burnham Yard as the preferred site to build a new stadium and an incredible year-around destination.”
The project, as announced, will see the building of a stadium with a retractable roof and natural grass field that will be the centerpiece of a mixed-use district.
The larger site is slated to see the construction of hotel space, restaurants, retail outlets, office structures, and entertainment venues.
It is expected that the stadium and mixed-use facilities will take up more than 100 acres. The Broncos are planning to purchase around 58 acres from the state, with an additional 25 acres coming from the utility company Denver Water.
Funding for the project is coming through the Walton-Penner Family Ownership Group.
Despite the Broncos announcement regarding the preferred location for the stadium, with hopes that the facility will be built in time for the 2031 National Football Leage season, an extraordinary amount of preliminary work remains to be completed.
Besides the civic engagement component, the Broncos will also be engaged in what has been described as “higher-level site design and planning, and the necessary agreements and approvals to move forward.”
Among the many details still to be ironed out is a final price tag for the Burnham Yard site, and whether the Colorado Department of Transportation will recoup the investment it has thus far put into the property.
That investment, according to the Denver Business Journal, amounts to around $12 million on the part of the CDOT, in addition to the original $50.8 million acquisition. “Top expenses include around $500,000 per year for security, $1.1 million annually for debt service, and over $5 million in total for ‘planning activities.’”
While no new tax dollars are expected to be involved in the project, the involved entities, reports the Denver Post, are “in the process of exploring city-led infrastructure improvements in the area as well as the possible uses of urban tax incentives, including tax-increment financing.”
September 25, 2025
By Garry Boulard
