Denver officials are reviving plans for a 10,000-seat arena to replace the aging Denver Coliseum, and residents of the Globeville and Elyria-Swansea neighborhoods are once again digging in to stop it from landing on the parcel they've long hoped would become housing. The proposed arena would move north of Interstate 70, onto the triangle-shaped piece of land next to the National Western Center campus, while the existing Coliseum sits south of the highway.
The arena is part of a larger master plan to redevelop the National Western Center campus, according to CBS Colorado. The campus hosts the National Western Stock Show every year, and the proposed 10,000-seat arena was first envisioned in the 2015 National Western Center Master Plan but went unfunded at the time, per nationalwesterncenter.com. Denver voters rejected funding for the project in 2021, part of a ballot measure that also included $30 million to renovate the Historic 1909 Building; unofficial results showed 58.87% of voters opposed it, according to the Denver Gazette.
Mike Bouchard, executive director of Denver's Office of the National Western Center, said the proposed arena would sit close to the campus core, per the same CBS Colorado report. He described the Triangle Community Vision Plan as an effort to imagine, together with neighborhoods, a future beyond the area's past 100 years. The proposal also includes rebuilding bridges and connections meant to integrate the campus with nearby neighborhoods, the station reports.
A Neighborhood Still Scarred by I-70
For Jessica Herrera, a former resident whose family was forced from its home during the I-70 reconstruction and widening in the 1990s, the fight is personal. That project removed dozens of homes from the area, the station notes, and Herrera told CBS Colorado she wants housing to return to the land rather than another large public venue.
Herrera said the community is fighting to keep the arena off land it wants used for housing and community space, and that residents do not want their neighborhood to resemble RiNo. She and other members of the GES Coalition believe the arena should remain south of the highway, where the current Coliseum already stands, according to CBS Colorado's reporting. The coalition has developed its own alternative plan for consideration.
The dossier shows the GES Coalition's earlier Reclaiming Our Land plan called for more than 45 acres of public land at the National Western Center to be returned to community hands, according to We Decide The Future. Denver Mayor Mike Johnston said in 2024 he was committed to some structure of community ownership on the Triangle, though he did not specify how that would work, as reported by Denverite.
Traffic, Height and Pollution Concerns
Herrera said the proposed scenarios under discussion are at least eight to 12 stories high, and that the arena could bring 1,000 cars through Elyria's main area, raising concerns about pollution. She said the two sides remain at odds despite the ongoing discussions, per CBS Colorado.
The National Western Center has engaged with residents in Globeville and Elyria-Swansea for the past two years and has held many community meetings, the station reports. Officials have said the center intends to include affordable housing in its plans, and the Master Plan calls for new and improved multimodal pathways meant to reconnect Globeville, Elyria and Swansea, according to nationalwesterncenter.com.
There's a dispute in the public record over just how big the contested parcel is. CBS Colorado describes the Triangle as spanning 92 acres north of I-70, while the Denver Gazette has described it as a 65-acre parcel on the southeast side of the new facility. It isn't clear whether the two figures refer to different boundaries of the same site.
Rising Home Prices Add to the Stakes
The fight over housing versus an arena comes against a backdrop of rapidly rising costs in both neighborhoods. Median single-family home prices more than doubled from 2014 to 2024, climbing from $130,000 to $370,000 in Elyria-Swansea and from $150,000 to $375,000 in Globeville, Denverite reported. Many residents who lost homes to the I-70 widening were forced to leave Denver altogether, per the outlet's reporting.
National Western Center officials project the arena's construction would yield 4,500 jobs over three years and eventually become the largest source of funding for the center's Community Investment Fund, according to nationalwesterncenter.com. Those figures remain projections tied to a proposal that has not secured the funding or approvals it lost at the ballot box in 2021, and residents like Herrera say they intend to keep pressing for housing on the Triangle rather than another large public venue.
