Ball Arena development plan approved, Nuggets and Avs commit to Denver

Denver Nuggets and Colorado Avalanche team president Josh Kroenke on Tuesday morning signed a deal that ties those franchises to Ball Arena and the land around it through 2050 — just hours after the City Council gave key approvals for a massive redevelopment on the site.

In signing a revised agreement with Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, the Kroenke family added 20 years to their legal commitment to the city. It came at a time when sports owners and municipal officials regularly have knock-down, drag-out fights over financing for stadiums, and even teams with decades of history in their cities, like the Oakland Athletics, are willing to decamp for communities willing to pony up more dough.

All it took was the council passing legislation on Monday night that cleared the way for lucrative development to unfold in coming decades. The acres of parking lots that surround the 25-year-old arena today are expected to transform over the next 30 years or so into a mixed-use urban neighborhood.

Under the terms of that legislation, it would feature more than 1,000 units of affordable housing (among 6,000 total units), a child care center, public art space and ample job opportunities for people from low-income Denver neighborhoods. Those plans were aided, in part, by the council’s exemption of the site from the strictures of a nearby view plane that would have restricted building heights in some places.

“This project will bring together our expertise in sports and real estate development in a way which (will) help us deepen our connection to the city and the community as a whole, as we continue to impact the region,” Josh Kroenke said during a news conference on the club level of the arena. “I’d like to personally thank Mayor Johnson, the City Council and the people of Denver for trusting us with such a massive project.”

Fresh off a public hearing lasting nearly four hours the night before, Matt Mahoney, Kroenke Sports and Entertainment’s senior vice president for development, said in an interview that he expected the multi-phase project to begin with a focus on better connecting the 70-acre property with existing downtown neighborhoods to the east.

“Solving the Speer Boulevard barrier is a priority for (ownership) and for us,” Mahoney said, referring to the thoroughfare that separates the arena grounds from downtown to the east.

He emphasized that while surface parking lots will be going away — eventually — KSE expects parking structures to add even more event parking than the 4,000 spaces the company offers visitors today.

The terms of the larger deal include the right for KSE to build a new arena on the same property or nearby, on the grounds now occupied by Elitch Gardens Theme and Water Park — which is slated for a separate redevelopment project.

Tuesday’s event was less about delving into the specifics of development plans and community benefit agreements and more about celebrating the completion of a planning and negotiation process that goes back years.

Billionaire Stan Kroenke — Josh’s father — purchased what was then the Pepsi Center, along with the Avs and Nuggets, for a combined $450 million in 2000, just months after the arena opened. As the younger Kroenke pointed out Tuesday, both of those teams and the family’s Colorado Mammoth lacrosse team have now won championships while calling the building home.

In Denver, the Kroenkes plan to blend their knack for building winning sports franchises with their penchant for landscape-shifting urban development, as they did with SoFi Stadium and its surroundings in Southern California.