In Broomfield, two developers trying to build a downtown for the bedroom community say the city has thrown them for a loop at the last minute — and the city’s top staffer is to blame.
“It just seems like the city manager, under her leadership, is doing her damnedest to throw up roadblocks to this project, and we don’t understand it,” said Joe Vostrejs of City Street Investors.
Vostrejs and partner Tim Fredregill have been working on the 40-acre, nearly $300 million Broomfield Town Square for the better part of a decade. It involves taking a small pond adjacent to City Hall, expanding it into a 12-foot deep swimmable and fishable lake, and surrounding it with waterfront retail and apartment buildings. That, in turn, would be connected to a vacant 60,000-square-foot building across the street.
The pair have until Sept. 12 to pull a building permit for the project or its site development plan could be revoked by city council, putting the entire deal in jeopardy.
Vostrejs figured that the $30 million in infrastructure work he submitted to the city last month, which includes building two small structures, would count as a building permit.
But according to Broomfield, that work doesn’t qualify.
“The code is designed to ensure meaningful advancement of the overall approved development, not isolated or minimal improvements that do not materially move the project forward,” City Manager Jennifer Hoffman said in an email to BusinessDen.
Hoffmann said she’s not against the project.
“Staff does not take a position for or against any project, nor do we approach projects through a personal lens,” she said.
“The water and the design would ensure its financial success”
Broomfield, incorporated 65 years ago, has always been a city without a downtown.
“We’re such an ideally placed city, we’re just missing that central place,” said Reid Kurtenbach, a Broomfield resident since 2010 who supports and lives near the planned project.
The seeds for the latest attempt to build a downtown were planted in 2015, when Broomfield, then led by City Manager Charles Ozaki, purchased a vacant Safeway building at 6775 W. 120th Ave. The City Council believed it could be incorporated into a future redevelopment of the area, where city hall, the library and post office all sit.
Discussions at that time involved Dana Crawford, the developer and preservationist known for her involvement in Denver’s Larimer Square and Union Station. Crawford, who died last year, phoned Vostrejs, an old friend.
He helped Crawford survey community members. The pair gathered focus groups and sent out questionnaires, sometimes with over 400 questions.
“The No. 1 thing [we heard] … ‘Whatever you build, it needs to be really and truly iconic,’” Vostrejs said. “We don’t need any more Wadsworth Boulevard. We don’t want another 120th.”
Vostrejs and his team at City Street Investors compiled the data and gave it to four design firms to mock up a concept. Denver-based Civitas, with its flashy lake and waterfront retail, won out handily. All of the retail would be leased to local operators, an intentional divergence from a town dotted with chain stores.
At this point, Vostrejs believed his role was over. But Broomfield wanted to keep him around, he said.
“The water and the design would ensure its financial success,” Vostrejs said. “Based on that, we decided we’d be interested in doing this.”
So, in November 2019, Vostrejs inked a deal to redevelop the site himself. Crawford exited the project, while Fredregill’s Outpost Partners jumped on board. Hoffman had assumed the city manager role four months earlier, in July.
The redevelopment agreement called for the creation of a 25-year-long urban renewal zone that would allow the developers to keep 50% of the generated sales and 100% of property tax revenue. Those funds, along with a newly created metro district, would sell bonds to reimburse the development costs of the public improvements.
And a business improvement district, the first of its kind in Broomfield, would be established to program the future area with events and help pay for maintenance and operating costs.
The bedroom community of four-lane roads and strip malls was finally getting its downtown.
“Broomfield doesn’t need more commercial, more retail property. It needs a heart. It needs a core,” Vostrejs said.
Permitting woes and fading hopes
Then the pandemic hit. In the haze of COVID’s early days, Vostrejs and Fredregill recall meeting with Hoffman to discuss the plans.
“She came to us with a rather astonishing request,” he said. “‘Dial the project way, way back.’”
Vostrejs said Hoffman asked him to consider ditching the lake component of the development.
Asked about the exchange, Hoffman said the project had grown in scope since the agreement was inked in 2019, like the expanded pond turning into a fishable and swimmable lake. Residential and commercial density increased as well, she added. The project today is expected to deliver nearly 500 units, mostly apartments with some townhouses.
“These meetings are part of due diligence and are intended to better understand proposed changes, test assumptions, and ensure alignment with adopted plans, infrastructure requirements, and community expectations,” she said. “As a project of this scale and complexity progresses, refinements and questions are a normal part of the process.”
Nothing directly came from these meetings, at least nothing that shrunk the project. But in 2022, the project hit its next hurdle.
The development had been subject to a fiscal impact study as part of creating an urban renewal zone to recapture property and sales tax revenue. Vostrejs said the results of the study were “generally favorable,” and its findings were sufficient enough for the project to move forward.
“And then, they surprised us,” he said.
The city commissioned a second study. In spring 2022, it found the project would have a net negative financial impact on the city.
“This analysis has a different purpose and looks at additional data,” Hoffman said of the difference between the first and second studies.
“The net fiscal impact on the City and County of Broomfield from the proposed project would be net negative (due to the costs of providing services and programs such as public safety, library/cultural, and other services to the residents and businesses, beyond the resulting tax and fee revenues) from the development.”
Vostrejs and Fredregill feared these findings would imperil the project, which at that point was seeking zoning approval. The two pushed back the vote and hired their own consultant to counter what they saw as a flawed study conducted by the city.
“It used methodology that seemed geared to show the least favorable light,” Fredregill said.
Hoffman said the city’s study wasn’t out of the ordinary, a “standard practice” for any development in town since 2004.
Ultimately, the zoning request received unanimous approval from city council on Sept. 13, 2022. A year later, the projectap final site plan was approved, setting off the three-year clock to pull a building permit.
The following two years were quiet, with the development team working on drawing construction plans and securing investors to buy the infrastructure bonds.
In November 2025, Fredregill emailed the city. He directly asked if a permit for the infrastructure work satisfied the requirement that a building permit be received within three years of the council approval date, and if permits for the apartment buildings could come at a later date.
“The 3-year period would pertain to the first building permit issued for the property, including new buildings or improvements to the former Safeway building. Additional permits may follow at a later date for the remaining buildings and other accessory structures,” replied Lynn Merwin, planning director for the city.
Fredregill proceeded with planning the infrastructure work, taking the response to mean that it would qualify as a building permit. That work is to include constructing two buildings — restrooms and a boathouse offering boat rental and concessions.
But three months later, he learned that Broomfield would not consider the permit to start that work to be a building permit.
“While the code does not explicitly limit which type of building permit qualifies, issuance of only an accessory building permit, such as a boathouse or public restroom building, would not meet the intent of this requirement,” Anna Bertanzetti, deputy city and county manager, said in a Jan. 28 email to Fredregill.
This ground the project to a screeching halt, according to Vostrejs.
“Apparently $30 million doesn’t demonstrate enough ‘intent,’” he said, referring to the cost of the infrastructure work.
Fredregill said the 1,000-square-foot boathouse is not as minor as it might sound.
“That is a commercial facility thatap going to pump out a million dollars in sales a year by the operator’s underwriting,” he said.
Vostrejs has requested that the September deadline be extended 18 months, pointing to Denver, which is undergoing a similar process to extend previously approved site development plans by 36 months. He also requested that the city more formally define what a building permit is.
The city council will take up the issue April 21.
On Monday, after a meeting between the developers and the city held by the Broomfield Chamber of Commerce, Fredregill said he feels like the municipality is gearing up to oppose an extension of the project on the basis that it won’t work financially. He noted that the bonds to finance the project are private. Taxpayers, he said, won’t be on the hook in the event of a financial shortfall.
“The city is going to again produce some form of fiscal impact cost-to-benefit analysis showing how much this is going to cost the taxpayers in Broomfield, and itap going to be done in a vacuum and sprung on us real time, similar to before,” he said.
“We had to be forced into a position of defending ourselves in 2022, and here it appears itap going to happen again.”
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