COMMERCE CITY — It has been six years since the last dog ran at the Mile High Greyhound Park — and the 65-acre site that played host to thousands of canine races for decades has sat empty since.
But Thursday, Commerce City residents heard about the latest vision for the former racetrack, including a timetable that calls for the first new homes to go up on the property starting next year.
Up to 500 homes — both single-family and multifamily — eventually could go up, with units geared at a range of incomes. There’s also room for up to 100,000 square feet of new retail.
Vehicle-oriented businesses, such as restaurants with drive-throughs, would be eschewed in favor of small neighborhood enterprises, including coffee shops and bakeries. But that doesn’t mean there won’t be a large-format business of some type on site.
Rick Wells, principal with Denver-based REGen LLC, told the small gathering of residents at the city’s recreation center that a larger retail presence is necessary to generate the sales-tax revenues to pay for infrastructure improvements for the new community.
There are only two water lines on the property and no roads, Wells said. REGen this year on redeveloping the former greyhound park.
A Boys & Girls Club building is the site’s first project. It broke ground a few weeks ago.
Paul Reimer, who has lived in Commerce City for almost 60 years, said he’s happy to see something happening with the former racetrack, which sits at the southwest corner of Holly Street and East 64th Avenue.
But he favors small over big.
“I want something that’s neighborhood-friendly, not big business,” he said. “A bakery or an ice cream parlor.”
And he worries that newly constructed low-income housing could put downward pressure on property values in the older neighborhoods around the site.
“I want something that enhances the neighborhood,” Reimer said.
Chris Cramer, community development director for Commerce City, said one of the elements of the plan that is different from other mixed-use communities sprouting up in the Denver area is the prospect of a vocational-skills training center.
He said with robust employment activity in the city’s construction and industrial sectors, as well as a need for workers with good technical training, the job-skills center could be an invaluable asset.
“What else can we do to equip people to get training and get a job?” Cramer said.
The conversation Thursday also touched on how to integrate Commerce City’s newest neighborhood with the surrounding community. That may start with the extension of Parkway Drive north to East 64th Avenue.
Cramer said the main thing is that the redevelopment project not become an enclave.
“We know we’re going to reconnect it to the neighborhood — the question is exactly how,” he said.
The city’s urban-renewal authority bought the former racetrack property in 2011 and .
