Some of the 75 property developers at a meeting Thursday to discuss the massive redevelopment envisioned for Denver’s Union Station walked away with one question:
Will the project produce enough revenue needed to justify the time and energy required to complete the work?
“That’s the key right there,” said Jim Chrisman, a senior vice president of development for Forest City who oversees master planning of Denver’s Stapleton neighborhood. “People are going to need more information before they know” whether they want the job.
Restoration of the historic train station and 15 acres surrounding it is expected to top $800 million. A master plan for the site released last year allows for 1.4 million square feet of private development – a dense mix of homes, offices, restaurants and shops – over the next 20 years. That amounts to 70,000 square feet of development work a year – small potatoes for many of the firms represented.
Potentially complicating matters, Chrisman said, is the degree to which developers would have to delay work to accommodate construction of rail lines at the station. Also of concern are questions about how owners of more than a dozen adjacent acres will choose to develop their properties.
The number-crunching is likely to reflect a handsome payoff as long as developers view Union Station and the surrounding lands as “an opportunity like no other,” Denver planning director Peter Park said.
Park sees a station that is a regional transportation hub and vibrant center of activity where families, shoppers and neighborhood residents converge.
“This is the mother of all (transit-oriented development),” he said, adding after the meeting that Union Station is the “center of the center and has the power to be the catalyst” for development of Lower Downtown and the Central Platte Valley.
The site’s owner, the Regional Transportation District, and its partners in the redevelopment – Denver, the Colorado Department of Transportation and the Denver Regional Council of Governments – expect to choose a master developer this fall.
Staff writer Christine Tatum can be reached at 303-820-1015 or ctatum@denverpost.com.
