Good morning, Broncos Country!
Look for the Denver Broncos to break ground on their new stadium in 2027.
At least that’s according to Broncos president Damani Leech after meeting with the media on Saturday prior to training camp practice. That would allow the franchise to meet its goal of completion in four years. Leech said the groundbreaking goal is late spring or early summer of next year.
The common theme remains now as it has throughout the process: The Broncos are taking a thoughtful approach and not rushing anything.
“We feel
like 2031 is still achievable for sure,” Leech said to the media. “Again, everybody has to be involved. Certainly, there’s things that we have to do and deliver to city council, but there’s other groups that are participating in the process in order to make that happen and make it a reality, but we think it’s realistic and achievable.”
For now, Burnham Yard remains the “preferred site,” as it has for about a year. For Burnham to just be the site, Leech said, it’s beyond the Broncos’ control. In May, the franchise made a major step with the purchase agreement for Burnham Yard.
“Ultimately, it goes to, when does city council approve all of those things?” he said on Saturday. “So you have to have a community benefits agreement signed, take that to city council, they approve our development agreement, they approve our rezoning agreement. There’s a number of agreements that have to be approved by city council.
“If we move forward with DURA and tax increment financing, all of those things have to be approved by city council. Ideally, those would be approved right around the same time, and once that happens, I think that’s a good indicator we’ve moved off a preferred site.”
In the meantime, the franchise has chosen an architect for the new stadium. If the new headquarters are an indication, the stadium will be a masterpiece.
“We’ve been working with Manica, a global, world-renowned architecture firm, for a number of months now, and continue to progress on designs of the stadium,” Leech said. “I think the things that we’ve seen have been pretty beautiful. Greg and Carrie are very, very involved, have a great relationship with David and his team, and things are going well there.
“Our master plan continues to iterate and evolve. Sasaki (an architecture, planning, landscape, and design firm) got us to a really great point. We’ve brought on Tryba Architects, which is a local Denver-based firm that’s done a lot of great work here in Denver to help us continue to evolve that master plan.
“We look forward to sharing updated renders of that here in the very near future and stadium renders, when it’s ready, will be shared probably on a much longer-term timeline, but (I) look forward to sharing in the very near future some updated renders of the district and neighborhood master plan.”
For those curious, yes, it appears the Broncos will go with the PSL route for the new stadium. That’s a private seat license, or fee, that gives you the right to purchase season tickets.
“As you know, I think every stadium in the last 10-plus years that’s been built, there have been PSLs issued,” Leech said. “So it seems like it’s a pretty likely thing to happen, but we haven’t made any formal decisions on that.”
Ultimately, the goal of the new stadium is to host the Super Bowl.
“It’s certainly something that’s on our minds,” Leech said. “It’s on the mayor’s mind, the governor’s mind, I think, fans as well. I wouldn’t say it’s a thing that we think about every day. We do understand that the league is pretty prescriptive about how they award those well into the future, so it’s definitely something worth thinking about. Obviously, we’ve got to get into the stadium and operate it for at least a couple of years before we can play a Super Bowl, but I would love to host the Super Bowl.”
