AURORA — The idea of an “aerotropolis” in the shadow of Denver International Airport has for years been aspirational talk among metro-area civic leaders hoping to create a kind of mini-city fueled by proximity to one of the country’s largest and busiest airports.
This month, in an unassuming room on the fifth floor of the Aurora Municipal complex, a group of government leaders, attorneys and underwriters met over a lunch of gyros and Greek salad and finally put up money — $22.5 million to start — to back up all the chatter.
The Aerotropolis Regional Transportation Authority voted May 17 to issue bonds toward what will amount to $200 million in transportation improvements over the next dozen years — including new interchanges on E-470 and Interstate 70 and a major north-south thoroughfare to rival Peña Boulevard — in a vast swath of mostly vacant land south of DIA.
The money is scheduled to drop into the authority’s account in June, and work on a new connection of yet-to-be-built 38th Avenue to E-470 will commence almost immediately thereafter.
“We’ve heard from (developers) around the world that they want to be there, but there was no way to get there,” said Matt Hopper, chair of the Aerotropolis Regional Transportation Authority, which is anchored by council members and commissioners from Aurora and Adams County. “Our charge is to create regional connectivity that will stimulate economic opportunity.”
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And it’s a big opportunity, according to a recent Metrostudy housing market analysis.
The Centennial-based consulting firm said of the roughly 220,000 future lots left to build on around Denver, nearly 30 percent are located in the E-470/I-70/DIA corridor, “which should enable this eastern submarket the capacity to support Denver metro area’s long-term population growth.”
Through most of the 2020s, Metrostudy expects the area around DIA to add an average of 544 homes to the market per year. At its peak over the next decade, the firm projects, the area could yield one of every four of the metro area’s new homes.
Planning maps already show proposed residential developments with names like Aurora Highlands, Painted Prairie, High Point and Sagebrush Farms — together accounting for tens of thousands of new homes and millions of square feet of commercial and retail space — set to sprout on 20,000 acres south of the airport.
But a drive through that vast expanse today is limited to a handful of lightly traveled roads that crisscross tamed prairie. Without robust arterials or connections to larger highways near the airport, growth will likely proceed in a patchwork fashion with developers putting in fractured infrastructure that only serves the properties they own.
“The fact that they are planning in advance, I think it is right where it should be,” said Patty Silverstein, president and chief economist of Littleton-based Development Research Partners. “The proactive nature of this plan is very important not just for the northeast quadrant but the entire Denver metro region.”
Tumultuous history
The concept of an aerotropolis pegged to DIA has been on the minds of regional planners for years. But how that development should take shape has been a bone of contention, coming to a head shortly after Denver Mayor Michael Hancock announced plans in 2012 to develop a commerce hub on DIA land called “Airport City.”
Adams County cried foul, saying the Airport City plan violated the 1988 annexation agreement in which the county granted Denver the land upon which to build DIA.
The dispute was resolved in 2015, when voters in Adams County and Denver approved a measure that allows the city to shepherd commercial development on 1,500 acres at DIA, while paying Adams County and cities in the county $10 million and splitting with them resulting tax revenue from the limited venture.
But regional planners recognized that development on DIA land was just a piece of a much larger picture. The tens of thousands of undeveloped acres surrounding DIA were ripe for an economic boom directly tied to activity at the airport, which contributes $26 billion a year to the local economy and saw a record 64.5 million passengers in 2018.
Brad Calvert, regional planning and development director at the Denver Regional Council of Governments, said “the increasingly global nature of business means a key element in any region’s success is its ability to move goods and people quickly and economically worldwide, with airports integral to this function.”
“The Denver region is in an enviable position in that we have an international airport that’s surrounded by a significant amount of land available for both expanded airport operations and other public and private investments,” Calvert said.
That potential has been recognized by several companies that have chosen to hitch their wagons to the aerotropolis concept, including the 1,501-room Gaylord Rockies Resort & Convention Center, which opened in December just a few miles from DIA. The year before, Amazon opened a 1 million-square-foot fulfillment center at the intersection of I-70 and E-470.
The Aerotropolis Regional Transportation Authority was formed last year to improve access to land in Aurora and Adams County that sits near DIA. The authority covers approximately 3,000 acres — between 26th and 48th avenues and E-470 and Powhaton Road — from which it will use property tax generated from future development to pay off the bonds it starts issuing next month.
Adams County Commissioner Steve O’Dorisio is one of the authority’s five voting members. He said the authority is “fulfilling the vision of voters in 1988,” when the original annexation agreement was struck between Denver and Adams County.
“We have to make sure the development doesn’t just occur along Peña Boulevard, but in other parts of the aerotropolis as well,” O’Dorisio said. “This creates jobs, adds to the housing supply and provides new commercial corridors.”
Provided by Aurora Highlands
A rendering from the upcoming Aurora Highlands project depicts part of the planned community.
Provided by Aurora Highlands
A rendering from the upcoming Aurora Highlands project depicts the planned community center.
Provided by Aurora Highlands
A rendering from the upcoming Aurora Highlands project depicts a map of the planned community.
Provided by Aurora Highlands
A rendering from the upcoming Aurora Highlands project depicts part of the planned community.
Show Caption of Expand
“Get ahead of the development”
One of those new commercial corridors is Powhaton Road, which will be built with a capacity to expand to six lanes as the population of the aerotropolis increases. The authority plans to spend $50 million building Powhaton, and another $36 million connecting it to I-70 via a new interchange.
More than $9 million is slated to improve 26th Avenue while construction of 48th Avenue will receive $8.1 million. The authority plans to spend more than $12 million building Aurora Highlands Parkway, which will connect the new connection to I-70 to a new $24 million interchange at E-470 and 38th Avenue.
The completion of all the roads and connections in the Aerotropolis Regional Transportation Authority’s plan won’t occur until 2032. The authority plans to issue several more rounds of bonds over the next few years to fund the full $200 million cost of making the improvements.
“The market is there — how do we take advantage of it?” said Hopper, the authority’s chairman. “This allows us to get ahead of the development.”
One of the first projects to come online will be Aurora Highlands, a 12,500-home behemoth that will feature 22 miles of trails, a recreation center, a sculpture park and a zipline. The 3,000-acre project at the northeast corner of E-470 and 26th Avenue could someday grow to 5,000 acres and be home to 60,000 new residents.
Carlo Ferreira, the project’s manager, said Aurora Highlands will feature “urban-type amenities in a suburban community.” He said the University of Colorado A-Line’s 40th Avenue & Airport Boulevard stop is just a couple of miles from the neighborhood, allowing residents to take transit to downtown Denver or to DIA.
“If we provide rooftops, they can attract companies into the area,” Ferreira said. “Offering workforce housing is an important ingredient.”
“Plan with purpose”
Aurora Highlands will have plenty of jockeying to do as the area fills in. Aside from the numerous other housing developments in the pipeline or already going vertical north of I-70, there are a slew of projects soon to be luring prospective homeowners just to the south of the interstate in Aurora and Arapahoe County, including Sky Ranch, Horizon Uptown and Prosper.
In its analysis, Metrostudy describes the area around Aurora Highlands as “an extremely competitive landscape.”
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What that means for a metro area increasingly under the gun with unrelenting population growth and vanishing wild and green spaces is yet to be seen.
In a Denver Post report published in January, the United States Geological Survey calculated that impervious surfaces such as roads, buildings and parking lots had increased by an average of 83.7 percent from 1974 to 2012 in Colorado’s 10 largest metro areas. In the Denver-Aurora metro area, that increase was clocked at 65.4 percent during the 38-year period.
And DRCOG projects that there will be 1.2 million more people in the metro area by 2050.
Rita Connerly, a lawyer who represents Aurora Highlands and who serves as chair of the Adams County Economic Development executive committee, said that makes it all the more important to “plan with purpose” when building out the aerotropolis.
“If landowners in this corridor don’t embrace the chance to create a destination place with multifaceted commercial and cultural activities, then we could lose an opportunity,” she said.
