Decades after the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints began quietly buying up farmland around what would eventually become Denver International Airport, its real estate investment arm is finally putting that land to use. Property Reserve Inc. is developing Tributary, a 960-acre community in Aurora south of DIA and east of E-470, that is slated to provide up to 4,859 housing units and add more than 12,000 residents to the city, with completion expected over the next two or three decades, according to The Denver Post.
The project, still in its early development stages, sits within the sprawling Denver Aerotropolis, a 21,000-acre growth zone spanning Denver, Aurora and Adams County that also includes The Aurora Highlands, High Point, Windler and Painted Prairie, according to The Denver Post. Property Reserve Inc. is the real estate investment arm of the church, and it has invested in real estate on the church's behalf since the 1960s, per the same report. Master-planned communities like Tributary are coming online across the broader Aerotropolis subregion.
Tributary itself stretches from Interstate 70 north to 6th Avenue south, and from Harvest Road west to Monaghan Road east, as reported by The Denver Post. The land breakdown includes 435 acres set aside for single-family homes, 58 acres for multifamily housing, 27 acres for commercial and retail development, and about 81 acres for mixed commercial uses. First Creek bisects the property, and the plan calls for 207 acres of parks and open space, along with trails, a recreation center, a school and a fire station.
Zoning Tweaks Clear Aurora's Planning Commission
Getting Tributary this far required a handful of zoning adjustments. Property Reserve requested raising the share of small lots allowed in the development from Aurora's standard 50% cap to 65%, a change the Aurora Planning and Zoning Commission approved that will add 333 additional lots, as noted by The Denver Post, according to city planner Sarah Wile as cited by the Post. The commission also approved signage changes for Tributary, granting the development two 75-foot-tall signs on each side of Harvest Road along the highway — well above the city's usual limit of one sign no taller than 30 feet for new communities.
A principal at Norris Design representing Property Reserve, Sean Malone said the larger signs mattered for the success of the future commercial district, while planning consultant Elise Applegate Clink said Tributary was designed to bring neighbors and nature together, noting the plan requires parks, trail corridors or open space within a quarter mile of any homesite. The application proceeded through Aurora's planning and zoning process.
The Aurora City Council does not need to approve a master plan for Tributary, but it did sign off on multiple service plans covering the area in 2023 and approved three zoning changes for the development this past June. Michael Kerrigan noted that the First Creek Powahatan Metro Districts cover Tributary's entire geographic footprint. Aurora's city council formally established First Creek Powhaton Metropolitan Districts Nos. 1 through 12 in July 2023 to finance the utilities and roads the development will need, according to the City of Aurora.
Highway Access Still Under Construction
Getting to Tributary depends on a highway project that broke ground in 2025 and is expected to be finished later this year. The Aerotropolis Regional Transportation Authority contracted Ames Construction to build a new $38.6 million interchange at I-70 and Aerotropolis Parkway, a project that will eliminate the existing frontage road and add on- and off-ramps plus a bridge across I-70, according to the Colorado Department of Transportation. Aerotropolis Parkway will also be widened and improved down to 6th Avenue as part of the work.
That interchange follows Aurora's opening of the $69.99 million Picadilly Road diverging diamond interchange at I-70 in February, a project Hoodline previously covered as it improved north-south traffic flow and commuter volume in the Aerotropolis submarket. Nearby, the Gaylord Rockies Resort and Convention Center — which Hoodline also reported generated $313.2 million in revenue in 2025 — has served as a commercial anchor drawing further development to the area.
Part of a Much Bigger Church Real Estate Push
Tributary is one piece of a much larger national pattern. An August 2026 Bloomberg investigation, reported by The Real Deal, estimated that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints holds at least 2.4 million acres of land across the United States with an assessed real estate value exceeding $20 billion, Bloomberg reported at Bloomberg. Property Reserve global head of development Tyler Buswell said legacy land parcels long held by the church are being converted into residential and commercial communities because urban expansion has engulfed the sites, making them more suitable for housing than agriculture, per that same investigation.
Since Ashley Powell took over as president and CEO of Property Reserve in 2017, the church's real estate arm has seen its transaction volume nearly double compared to the previous decade, the outlet's reporting found. Beyond Aurora, the company is building the 27,000-acre Sunbridge community southeast of Orlando, planned for 36,000 homes and already occupied since 2020, a 4,000-acre site near Phoenix, and a roughly 3,000-acre holding near Austin, Texas, with pre-existing residential development rights.
Property Reserve has also moved beyond raw land, spending $152.5 million on a 384-unit apartment complex in Boca Raton in August 2025 and $133 million on a 315-unit rental community in Plantation, Florida, in July 2024, according to The Real Deal. Taken together, the moves illustrate what the outlet described as a sophisticated, long-horizon institutional investor combining large-scale land entitlement with strategic infrastructure timing — a strategy now playing out on 960 acres of former Aurora farmland once meant for crops, not commuters.
