The National Western Center is bringing back plans from over a decade ago to build a new, 10,000-seat arena to replace the old Denver Coliseum.
This is part of a much larger master plan to redevelop the campus that hosts the National Western Stock Show every year.
The last phase of campus development involves the Triangle – an area that spans 92 acres north of I-70. This final phase also involves plans for a new arena, which has been at the center of dispute for years.
“The vision for the Triangle Community Vision Plan is to imagine with the neighborhoods how this can be so much more than what has been here for the past 100 years,” said Mike Bouchard, executive director of Denver’s Office of the National Western Center.
Bouchard was eager to show off some of the big plans for the area.
“Rebuilding some of those bridges and connections, so that the campus is no longer an island but really integrated with the neighborhoods that it lives in,” he explained about one aspect of the proposal.
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But the most noticeable part is a new arena to replace the old Denver Coliseum, currently south of I-70. New plans would move the arena north of the highway.
“To make it proximate to the core of the campus,” Bouchard explained.
Denverites voted down funding for this new arena in 2021, and community members continue to push back.
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Jessica Hererra’s home was among dozens removed from the area, now a part of campus, during a reconstruction and widening project of I-70 in the 90s. Her family was forced out of their home, and she wants to see housing return to the area.
“We’re fighting for the arena not to be on that land where we want it to be houses and be a community, like it once was before, for generations,” said Herrera.
While Bouchard says they intend on including affordable housing in the plans, Hererra says it doesn’t satisfy what they’re hoping for.
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“Every scenario that they gave us is at least 8 to 12 stories high,” she said. “We’ve told them we do not want our area looking like RiNo whatsoever. We want our community just to be houses.”
Hererra and dozens of others in the GES Coalition also feel the arena should remain south of the highway and have come up with an additional plan of their own for consideration.
“They plan on putting the arena right there in the middle of Elyria, where it’s going to affect so many neighbors with not only 1,000 cars coming in and out of Elyria in the main area, also the pollution that comes with all the cars in the area,” said Hererra.
The National Western Center has been engaging with residents in the nearby Globeville and Elyria-Swansea neighborhoods for the past two years and has held many community meetings. Still, Hererra says the two parties remain at odds.
