Broncos’ new stadium district at Burnham Yard will take up 150 acres

For months, the community most affected by the Broncos’ planned stadium at Burnham Yard has received only small amounts of information about the development that will be built in its backyard.

La Alma Lincoln Park residents got their first taste of what’s to come at an open house in November. A community advisory committee for the city’s small area plan at Burnham has met three times since October and received proposed updates on pathways to the stadium site at a Jan. 21 meeting.

But La Alma Lincoln residents — and Denver residents at large — still have been trying to understand the actual size and community traffic to expect with the Broncos’ new stadium, as resident Felix Herzog told The Denver Post.

“The (community advisory) committee was fantastic at creating the language that defined equity and access to resources and what we want out of this entire project,” Herzog said. “What I haven’t seen yet so far is what the final design is going to look like.”

That final design is still a ways off. But on Thursday night, at a community information meeting hosted by the Broncos at the La Alma Recreation Center, a crowd received the most detail yet as to the scope of the franchise’s planned mixed-use development at Burnham.

In a presentation outlining the Broncos’ initial vision, Sasaki architect Josh Brooks — who’s leading design on the stadium’s development plan — told community members that the actual stadium area has expanded to 150 acres and said the stadium itself is positioned to the western edge of the region to ensure noise will be “as far away from (La Alma) community as possible.” An updated rendering presented to residents at the meeting outlined a potential tailgate area just south of the stadium, with a swath of surface parking slightly farther south below West Sixth Avenue.

Broncos president Damani Leech told reporters the actual stadium capacity is “still TBD” but said the organization is planning for “between 5 and 7 million square feet of development.”

“So hopefully, people feel good that it’s not going to be a bunch of skyscrapers right up against the residential neighborhood,” Leech said.

The Broncos also presented ideas on preliminary phasing for a mixed-use district around the new stadium at Burnham Yard, with plans for preliminary “open space,” entertainment-district buildings and temporary parking lots all to be in place by the stadium’s opening in 2031. Those parking areas, Brooks said, eventually could be built upon with other commercial buildings, similar to an underground garage.

Meeting organizers also polled the audience on a slew of questions related to stadium development, including preferred kinds of mixed-use structures inside the stadium district. Community members were also asked their primary concern around the Broncos’ new stadium: Attendees voted overwhelmingly for traffic congestion and impacts on property taxes for housing in the area.

“I have mixed feelings about this,” 49-year-old La Alma resident Christy Shinbara told The Post, “because we just don’t want any of our neighbors displaced. … A lot of them are scared about what’s going to happen to everybody.”

The poll results mirrored similar concerns discussed in the small area plan advisory committee’s previous meetings. Committee member Christina Eyre told The Post that the group had concerns over proposed designs presented in a Jan. 21 meeting for pedestrian crossings across the nearby RTD rail line at 10th Avenue, Ninth Avenue and Eighth Avenue, given the crossings’ immediate proximity to several homes in La Alma Lincoln Park.

As part of their presentation Thursday, the Broncos also are proposing to extend an RTD rail line through Burnham up and over West 13th Avenue, creating an underpass for cars and pedestrians to pass beneath.