Nicolais: Denver City council can score by approving plan for the proposed soccer stadium

The Denver City council is set to vote on May 12 over plans necessary to build the Denver NWSL soccer and entertainment complex. Hopefully they won’t shank this golden opportunity.

The stadium is purpose-built for women’s soccer, but will contribute much more to the surrounding area and city. And the price tag is not prohibitive. To the contrary, the cost of passing up on this opportunity would be an economic faux-pas.

The city council vote is to acquire land situated between South Broadway and Santa Fe Drive just below Interstate 25 where it bends southeast. It is on the other side of the highway from the Home Depot and across the South Platte River from Vanderbilt Park. Currently the land is a vacant stretch of dirt that has served no better purpose than as a staging area for construction crews that revamped the Santa Fe / I-25 interchange more than a decade ago.

For $70 million dollars — $50 million for land acquisition and $20 million for off-site improvements including bike, pedestrian and park improvements as well as widening Santa Fe Drive — the City of Denver would own land that could have a positive economic impact measured in the billions. Comparatively, the Denver NWSL owners would bring $200 million to the table for actual development.

That is just good business.

In an era where sports teams regularly ask the public to underwrite their stadiums, this is the kind of deal that makes sense. The City of Denver owns an asset that would appreciate many times over, it revitalizes a neighborhood, it collects more sales and property tax and it has a new gem to show off to the rest of the country. And women in sports finally have some parity with their male counterparts.

Win, win, win, win, win. The new soccer club will be hard-pressed to rack up as many wins in its first season as the City of Denver will under this deal.

I am admittedly biased about this project. I wrote about the possibility of a new women’s soccer franchise nearly two years ago. I plunked down a deposit for two seats within hours of tickets going on sale. I effused about the team possibilities earlier this year. And I have argued that the Broncos and Rapids should swap locations, in large part because soccer stadiums are a better fit in city centers.

I am hardly the only one, though. Mayor Mike Johnston and his team have thrown their weight behind the plan. For Johnston it is the kind of civic project that serves as a capstone for his term in office — just like the Denver Convention Center or Denver International Airport did for past administrations. 

Business owners in the area also see the stadium as a golden ticket. After decades watching the surrounding neighborhood slowly decay, many were then nearly wiped out by the COVID pandemic. The idea of 14,500 sports fans converging nearly 20 times a year — in addition to other events at the venue — is the type of panacea they could only dream about.

Many remember what LoDo looked like before Coors Field opened at 20th and Blake. To describe the area as “rundown” would be akin to calling the current Rockies a “below-average” club. But the tens of thousands of fans who continue to show up, no matter how bad the team is, transformed the neighborhood almost overnight. From restaurants, eateries and bars to retail shops and new housing complexes that sprung up, the stadium is the economic heart that pumps life into everything around it.

That could be the Denver NWSL stadium, too. 

Revitalization and prosperity would be forgone conclusions: money flowing in from the suburbs through fans arriving at the adjacent Park-N-Ride; wealthy residents of Wash Park walking over to catch a match; downtown office employees dropping in after work for dinner before kickoff. It is like a whole neighborhood winning the lottery.

If the Rockies continue to chase historic levels of futility and the Rapids ply their trade in a crumbling venue halfway to Kansas, there is a legitimate opportunity for the Denver NWSL playing in such a prime location would become one of the toughest tickets in town. 

Given the apparent positives, it would seem like a foregone conclusion that the plans will sail through the Denver City Council. Remarkably, that is not true. Short-sighted opponents have cited current market conditions or other, unrelated priorities that must be funded. They ignore the probability that investment in this project will provide long-term solutions through additional tax revenue collected.

To make sure that message is delivered, Denver NWSL has begun a campaign to help demonstrate community support. They have asked for people to show up for the vote or send letters to council members. They know that nothing can flip an elected official faster than a vocal community.

The ball has been placed on the spot and the Denver City Council has been lined up to take the shot. All they have to do to make the net ripple is vote to approve the plan put before them. If they put laces through it and vote yes, it will be a big win for both Denver NWSL and the City of Denver.

Mario Nicolais is an attorney and columnist who writes on law enforcement, the legal system, health care and public policy. Follow him on Bluesky: @MarioNicolais.bsky.social.

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