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INFILL TAKES OFF

Mile-High City to get growth without sprawl thanks to development of abandoned airport

By Edmund Mander

Forest City Enterprises has begun work on a more than $4 billion project to develop Denver’s abandoned Stapleton International Airport.

Denver is about to grow without getting larger. Describing it as the biggest urban "infill" development ever, Cleveland-based Forest City Enterprises has started work on a more than $4 billion project to develop Denver’s abandoned Stapleton International Airport.

On a site that covers 4,700 acres — or 7.5 square miles — the company plans to build more than 12,000 homes, 3 million square feet of retail space and 10 million square feet of office property over the next three decades.

But this massive project, while providing homes for 30,000 people and workplaces for 35,000, will not create a single square inch of sprawl; the site was long ago completely surrounded as the city grew up around the former airport. Once the fifth-busiest in the world, Stapleton closed five years ago after neighbors opposed a much-needed expansion.

"Denver is growing from within," observed Tom Gleason, vice president of public relations at Forest City, which has been responsible for several high-profile mixed-use urban projects across the country, including Tower City Center, Cleveland; 42nd Street Hilton Times Square, New York City; and University Park at MIT, Cambridge, Mass. "The goal is to make it look like a traditional urban development to reflect the surrounding neighborhoods."

Forest City Stapleton, a wholly owned subsidiary of Forest City, kicked off the project’s first phase in March, starting work on a 750,000-square-foot regional center and the first of several Main Street- style neighborhood "town centers," some anchored by grocery stores, that will be dotted around the site. The regional center, which has been named Quebec Square, after a street running at the edge of the former airport, will contain a Home Depot, a Super Wal-Mart — the city’s first — and Sam’s Club, among other retailers and restaurants. It is scheduled to open next summer.

"This isn’t just power shopping at Wal-Mart," said Emerick Corsi Jr., Forest City Stapleton’s senior vice president of retail, adding that the project will, for the first time, offer surrounding residents "a good mix" of retail.

At press time the company was talking to Borders Books & Music, Old Navy, Office Depot, Starbucks and Linens ’n Things, Corsi said.

Stapleton will have an immense impact on Denver’s economy, enhancing its status as a world-class center of business and industry, according to observers.

"That’s a heck of a lot of jobs," said Dean Insalaco, vice president at the Denver office of CB Richard Ellis, the international real estate services firm, referring to the 35,000 people who will eventually be working there. "Stapleton will be a tremendous economic growth generator."

An office building will open at the end of next year in the first of about a half dozen town centers. These hubs, some anchored by grocery stores, will consist of two- and three-story buildings, with the traditional downtown layout of yesteryear — retail on the ground floor and apartments and offices above. The first town square, for instance, will include 200,000 square feet of retail, including a 60,000-square-foot grocery store, a town green and 100 units of housing for the elderly.

In keeping with the urban character of the development, the combination of broad sidewalks, low buildings, and close proximity of stores, homes and offices will make the project very accessible, executives say.

Not only will Quebec Square be close to homes, but it also will be within walking distance of a local United Airlines training center and a local hotel, Corsi explained.

New retailers in this part of the city are sorely needed, executives and officials say. While malls and other retail developments have gone up elsewhere in and around Denver, the northeastern part of the city in particular has slipped through the cracks, he and several others noted, forcing people to drive a distance for their shopping.

Stapleton served as Denver’s airport from 1929, but it grew increasingly unpopular with local residents as the city grew up around it. With neighbors staunchly opposed to any addition of badly needed runways, Denver opened a new airport on the city’s fringes. Now the airport is a drive away, while stores will be within walking distance, rather than the other way around.

"It [Stapleton] acted as a barrier between the neighborhoods," Insalaco said. "Now it is bringing the neighborhoods together."

Deciding the old airport’s future was nevertheless quite contentious. Citizens and officials held scores of meetings and expended thousands of hours to devise a blueprint — compiled in a document dubbed "The Green Book" — for the old airport’s development, with stipulations on environmental protection, open space, affordable housing and other issues.

Some of the many stipulations governing the project revolve around affordable housing. About 160 of the 800 houses in the project’s first phase will be sold to families making between $37,260 and $49,700 a year, and federally subsidized Section 8 housing certificates will be accepted for another 800 rental apartments. Forest City is also donating a total of 8 acres of land to four nonprofit housing groups for the construction of 200 units of affordable housing.

The city formed the Stapleton Development Corp. to handle the selection of a developer and the sale of the property. Along with Forest City, three other developers vied for the project — San Francisco-based Catellus Development, the former LaSalle Partners from Chicago, and Terrabrook Development of Dallas. Forest City got the contract in November 1998.

"Forest City really came out as a shining star," said Tom Mathews, a vice president at CB Richard Ellis in Denver. "Forest City came in and really worked with the city."

Under the agreement, Forest City is paying $79.4 million for the land, and contributing another $44 million for the development of 1,100 acres of parks and other open space. The company also is paying up front for infrastructure that includes the construction of sewers, water lines, roads, a police station and schools, and is set to recover those costs through tax revenues generated by the development over the next 25 years. Quebec Square alone is projected to generate about $6.5 million a year in tax revenues, Gleason said.

The development of Stapleton is an especially valuable bonus for Denver, because the city already is developed right up to its boundaries, executives say.

"Denver is real excited about Stapleton because rather than a lot of cities where the suburbs keep growing and growing É Denver has the opportunity for some growth right within its city limits," Mathews said.

Architects for the project are KA Architecture, Cleveland, which is designing Quebec Square, and Urban Design Group, with corporate headquarters in Chicago and offices in Denver, Atlanta, Chicago and other cities, which is responsible for the first town center.

For the project’s master plan, Forest City also hired Calthorpe Associates, Berkeley, Calif., a company whose principal, Peter Calthorpe, is a pioneer of the New Urbanism architectural style that is behind a push toward the return to more traditional neighborhoods.

"Many years from now, future generations will look back at this period in our city’s history and regard this as one of those critical moments in which the citizens of Denver had the vision and the resolve to make the most of an unprecedented opportunity to secure our continued place as one of the most livable cities in the nation," said Mayor Wellington Webb, in a prepared release in March announcing the beginning of work on the project. "It is a tremendous legacy to leave our children."

Others agree: "This will be Mayor Webb’s legacy," Insalaco said. "The project certainly illustrates that Denver is a very business-friendly city."

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