During a news conference at the National Western Complex on Dec. 18, 2014, Denver Mayor Michael Hancock said a new master plan set out a path to make the site a larger tourist draw. (Jon Murray, The Denver Post)
Denver Mayor Michael Hancock says an in-the-works financing plan for the ambitious National Western Complex project could include seeking voter approval for borrowing or a lodging tax hike. But he says a sales tax increase “would be the absolute last resort.”
“The idea would be to leverage our visitors to help us pay for some of these things,” Hancock told editors and reporters at The Denver Post an hour after
The Post reported on details of the plan for the 109-year-old site in Thursday’s paper.
The 128-page is long on details about the envisioned transformation of the 95-acre stock show site over the next decade. But it provides no overall cost estimates or a plan to pay for the projects.
City officials say some financial details and cost estimates will come out in mid-February, when they plan to submit an application for state Regional Tourism Act funding. That program awards money to projects will draw more visitors from outside Colorado.
Hancock’s strategy is to attract more players into a budding public-private partnership that would direct the overall project and line up multiple sources of money — similar to the strategy that has paid for the $500 million Union Station transit hub project.
Previous studies suggest that the planned stock show site components easily will exceed that sum.
Already on board are the city, the nonprofit National Western Stock Show organization, Colorado State University, the Denver Museum of Nature & Science and the History Colorado Center.
Beyond ensuring the site can continue hosting the National Western Stock Show and Rodeo each January, the master plan proposes new buildings and improvements that include a 10,000-seat arena, a big exposition center and reclamation of a mile of the South Platte Riverfront. The changes are aimed at drawing 1 million more visitors a year to what could become a massive entertainment, education and agricultural center.
City officials and the city’s lobbyists have begun researching potential federal grants that could come from environmental, transportation, housing and even educational programs, Hancock said. And the National Western group is making plans for a big philanthropic drive.
“I’m confident with that stacking (of funding sources) because that’s how we’ve done some of these really big projects,” Hancock said. “The city cannot do it by itself.”
Still, Hancock said, voters could be asked, in 2016 at the earliest, to help by approving tax increases or issuing new bonds or both.
He zeroed in on the lodging tax. The tax on overnight hotel stays in Denver is 14.75 percent, and voters last increased the city portion of the rate in 2005.
