The nation’s top builder of NASCAR racetracks has come courting in Adams County, bringing at least $90 million and the promise of a long-term commitment.
International Speedway Corp. officials have their eyes on two potential partners but say they are willing to take things slow as they attempt to change minds and win hearts.
Still smarting from a rejection by Staten Island, N.Y., representatives of ISC say the group intends to build a racetrack in Aurora or Commerce City, but only if it can first secure community and political support.
Building a new racetrack in Kansas City, Kan., took four years and cost ISC $90 million of its own money. Repeating the process in Colorado will probably cost the company more and require it to overcome substantial obstacles.
“For the project to be successful here, we have to connect early with the stakeholders,” said ISC managing director Kathy Milthorpe. “We’re looking for a place where the community wants the asset.”
The Daytona Beach, Fla.- based company announced last week that it wants to build a massive track for at least 75,000 spectators and has identified two parcels of land that could hold it. ISC said it may need upwards of $150 million in public money to complete the project.
“We came out in the open as soon as the land arrangements” were far enough along, Milthorpe said Wednesday. “We are ready to communicate, take the time, discuss the options and consider the needs of the community.”
Foes start their engines
Opposition to the Aurora site, north of Interstate 70 near the Watkins exit, already is forming.
“Residents here are not enamored with it,” said former Watkins Mayor Larry Miller.
Many of the town’s 1,600 residents are fans of NASCAR but not of the noise, dust and traffic problems the track could attract.
“I’ve gone to different tracks in Michigan, Phoenix and Texas, and you can see that the impact of the track is tremendous,” Miller said.
“You’ve got professionals out here, from doctors to lawyers and accountants, who are living in $400,000 homes or better. It’s not going to be an easy battle to fight the residents of Watkins, in any way, shape or form.”
At nearby Front Range Airport, manager Dennis Heap already has rolled out the red carpet. The corporate jets that fly to NASCAR events could be an economic tonic for the under- utilized airport, he said. “We are ready for it because we’ve got 9,000 acres of virgin land to be developed.”
Aurora officials said it’s too early to say what they would do to land the speedway. But first, ISC would have to figure a way around a city provision that limits the number of incentives Aurora can offer a racetrack.
“The charter amendment would be an issue,” Mayor Ed Tauer said.
ISC would first have to work out a deal with the landowner, then “together they’d have to come to the city with a proposal,” he said.
Aurora City Councilwoman Molly Markert already supports the track, saying Aurora needs a destination for entertainment dollars.
“I just love the sound of engines and motors,” she said. “I think it would be just awesome.”
The Commerce City site is a few miles southeast of Reunion, a 1,200-home community being developed by Shea Homes. The homebuilder says it is uncertain about how much noise and dust the speedway would generate.
“We will want to be part of the public review process, and we will insist that they mitigate the adverse impact on our residents,” said Cheryl Haflich, marketing director for Shea Homes.
Commerce City Mayor Sean Ford said residents will get to vote on any formal racetrack proposal. And although the city gave $107 million in tax incentives to Kroenke Sports Enterprises in 2004 to build a professional soccer stadium, Ford declined to say whether it will also provide ISC with incentives.
“If a formal proposal comes forth, everything will be decided in a public process,” he said.
Any city considering a racetrack should be aware of the pitfalls, said Sam Mamet, executive director of the Colorado Municipal League. They include traffic and law enforcement demands, noise and dust, Mamet said.
Mixed record of success
Cities in other states have already faced those considerations, meeting ISC’s efforts to build speedways with mixed results. Civic leaders in the New York City borough of Staten Island were so hostile to a proposed racetrack that ISC decided to scuttle it in December. Their counterparts in Kansas City, Kan., describe the ISC track that opened there in 2001 with gushing enthusiasm.
The speedway has been an economic boon to Kansas City, which lives in the shadow of upscale suburbs and the more sophisticated Kansas City, Mo.
“Our community had fallen on hard times, and we were sort of the stepchild of the surrounding area,” said Cindy Cash, president and chief executive of the Kansas City Kansas Area Chamber of Commerce. “We are no longer the stepchild. The speedway has given us dollars to do other things in our own community.”
The Kansas Speedway generated $150 million in economic activity in its first year and has spawned a commercial development that boasts restaurants and hotels, stores, a water park and a baseball park that hosts the minor league Kansas City T-Bones.
“The Kansas Speedway was a catalyst for development,” said Cash, but it didn’t come without a cost. ISC paid for about a third of the track’s cost – about $90 million – and Kansas City paid the remaining $150 million through a mix of sales-tax refunds and public financing.
Construction costs included $30 million in road improvements that widened some of the speedway’s access roads to four lanes without a median so they can hold five lanes of traffic when necessary.
Island of opposition
In Staten Island, ISC was prepared to pay the full cost of building a racetrack on land it owned and needed only to secure development approvals for the project. It met unanimous resistance from the borough’s councilmen, who said the project wasn’t good for an already congested area.
“We are an island accessed by four bridges, three of which are already antiquated or overutilized,” said Staten Island Councilman James Oddo. “We are already drowning in our own traffic. Bringing 85,000 people never resonated.
“Somewhere along the line, e (ISC) was given some bad advice by their lobbyists, or they misread the political climate and political will.”
ISC also is in the midst of a controversial effort to build a track in Kitsap County, near Tacoma, Wash. Concerns echo those already being voiced in Colorado, with noise and traffic foremost.
An ISC subsidiary, Great Western Sports, is willing to commit $180 million. Washington legislators are considering a bill that would use state sales taxes to pay another $164 million and allocate $24 million from a tax on race tickets. More than 20 state lawmakers are co- sponsoring the bill, none of whom represent Kitsap County or neighboring Pierce County. The bill’s first committee hearing is this week.
However it plays out in Kitsap County or metro Denver, New York’s Oddo said civic leaders should be prepared to deal with a deep-pocketed,well- organized company that will aggressively lobby for its project.
“It was a wild ride,” he said of Staten Island’s experience.
Staff writer Kristi Arellano can be reached at 303-954-1902 or karellano@denverpost.com.
Staff writer Monte Whaley can be reached at 720-929-0907 or mwhaley@denverpost.com.
