CENTENNIAL — On one side of Peoria Street just east of Arapahoe Road is a strip mall, then a horse stable area to the north, next to some town homes and single-family units.
On the other side of Peoria is a new greenbelt area just south of Cherry Creek State Park, complete with a meandering creek with a trail for residents to hike, bike or walk their dogs.
But just south of that is a new neighbor that has some area residents asking questions: an Immigration and Customs Enforcement office building that will also serve as a processing area for illegal immigrants who are being detained. It’s currently about half-built.
“It’s very close to our neighborhood, and we didn’t know what was going on,” said Deb Spors, who lives in unincorporated Arapahoe County near the site. “And we don’t know what kind of people are going to be detained there. Are they criminals?”
The new ICE office will be a two-story, 53,000-square-foot building on 5 acres in Centennial. It will be mainly for ICE office personnel.
But a quarter of the facility will be used for detention, as ICE agents process illegal immigrants to the main detention center in Aurora. There won’t be a tall, barbed-wire fence. Instead, fences will be wrought iron and seven feet tall.
Carl Rusnok, regional ICE spokesman, said immigrants detained there will held for a maximum of 10 hours, and likely much less than that, before they are shipped to Aurora.
“Nobody is going to be housed there overnight,” he said.
The city planning and zoning commission signed off in November. There were few complaints from Centennial residents during the public-hearing process, as the area is already a mix of commercial and light industrial.
But across the street from the new site is the city of Greenwood Village and unincorporated Arapahoe County, where numerous people live.
Some of those folks say Centennial should have included them in the process. Now they wonder about traffic in the area, safety, and even if their home values will decrease because of the ICE facility.
“There are a bunch of concerns when you have a facility that has the potential for detaining people,” said Diana Botten, who lives across from the new ICE facility in the Windemere neighborhood in Greenwood Village.
Immigrants being processed at the Centennial site will be bused there, then processed inside the facility. There will be no visitation, which has been a concern at other ICE sites where families who visit detainees can clog the streets.
“It’s not meant to be anything like that,” Rusnok said.
Carlos Illescas: 303-954-1175 or cillescas@denverpost.com
