On October 21st, City Council approved the rezoning in six ways:
1. The rezoning itself was approved
2. A development agreement for Ball Arena
3. An amendment to the development agreement for River Mile proposed development
4. Service plans for the metro districts at Ball Arena
5. Modification to the view plane ordinance from the bell at the NWC of 14th and Larimer
6. An arena trust agreement to keep the sports teams in Denver through June 30th of 2050
LoDoNA provided a letter of support for the rezoning to all members of City Council.
Of these six items, four received unanimous approval from the City Council!! The view plane modification received 10 votes in favor and one against. Two members of council were absent. The service plans for the metro districts received 8 votes in favor and 3 against. It is significant that the council supported the requests of Kroenke Sports & Entertainment (KSE) so strongly!
Council support was due in large part to:
1. The Community Benefits Agreement (CBA), which was obtained just several days before the hearing!
2. The alignment of KSE with many of the benefits included in the CBA as well as KSE’s commitment to be in Denver.
3. The rezoning is consistent with several prior plans of the city, including blueprint Denver, the Denver area plan of 2007 and the Denver area plan amendment of 2018. Consistency with prior plans was highlighted by staff and at least one council member – President Amanda Sandoval.
Throughout the last month, numerous meetings of a committee seeking the CBA were held, with numerous e-mails and phone calls, all of which assisted in achieving the CBA. After the CBA was agreed to, a press conference was held at Racies brewery. This brewery is viewed as being in the Sun Valley community but is a part of La Alma Lincoln Park community.
What remains will be monitoring the implementation of all the terms of the CBA.
The committee that achieved the CBA (the Ball Arena Community Benefits Agreement Committee (BACBAC) will be commencing monthly meetings in 2025, and then monitoring the development throughout the expected 25 to 30 year timeframe build out is expected to take.
