Report: Plan for possible Broncos stadium in Lone Tree becomes a bit more clear

New stadium talk is all the rage around the Denver metro, and Lone Tree is solidifying their case to be the future home of the Broncos.

In a Friday report from the Denver Gazette, the paper detailed that Lone Tree officials this weekend audibled a possible site location in what is already designated to be a large-scale development in RidgeGate East that is already planned to be a big development.

“We’re continuing our diligence, it’s complex; we haven’t ruled anything out,” Broncos owner Greg Penner said earlier this week. “We’re still looking at our current site, other sites around Denver, Lone Tree, Aurora. We don’t have a set timetable for making a decision. We have a lease that ends at a certain date, and we can focus on that, but it could be something that happens earlier than that (date, or we could be in our current stadium for longer. We don’t have a set timetable at this point.”

The Broncos are focused on a project that would best prepare their NFL team for the next 50 years. They’ve been eyeing a possible move from downtown to Lone Tree for months.

In Tuesday’s statement to the Gazette, the city shared the RidgeGate East land on the southeast corner of Interstate 25 and Lincoln Avenue as a possibility. They highlight that it was already approved in 2018 to house a 440-acre development.

“We are always open to ideas that support the vision of the Lone Tree City Center as a destination urban center, first envisioned when voters annexed the area into Lone Tree,” Melissa Gallegos, a city spokesperson, said in the statement when asked to respond to the Gazette about the Broncos interest in Lone Tree.

“The city and the property owner have worked for decades to ready the site for regional destination development, including transit investments into the heart of the City Center,” Gallegos said to the paper.

The land is owned by Coventry Development Corp., which also owns land that is supposed to be the Lone Tree City Center.

There is already infrastructure in place at the site. Lone Tree has invested hundreds of millions in the area that they annexed back in 2000 between highway improvements and making sure the RTD light rail reached the location.

The Broncos’ lease on Empower Field at Mile High expires in 2030, and the team is focused on not rushing into a new building but instead setting up the best situation possible for the next 50 years. Could that spot be Aurora? Colorado’s third-largest city is close to one of the country’s biggest airports and has other benefits. Aurora didn’t give as much hope in their comments in the same story. One interesting aspect being overlooked is how much the current site has been overlooked by the public but continues to get mentioned by ownership.

A new football stadium is coming to the Denver area soon, and as with most of the league’s newest homes, it seems likely they’ll be a district built by the Broncos attached. That’s already being done in Denver with the new NWSL stadium, and the Avalanche and Nuggets are attempting something similar around Ball Arena.