When the Colorado Department of Transportation’s investment arm had the chance to buy the idle Burnham Yard from Union Pacific in early 2021 for $50 million, money was tight.
CDOT turned to the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade for a $7.5 million loan, which, together with a $7.5 million down payment from the High Performance Transportation Enterprise or HPTE, allowed a $35 million commercial bank loan to move forward in May of that year.
The deal was touted as a once-in-a-generation opportunity that would allow Interstate 25 between Colfax and Santa Fe to be widened and straightened. The purchase could improve transit access, including serving as a potential hub for a Front Range Passenger Rail line.
Not only would frustrated commuters gain back the countless hours of time they were losing to a poor road design, but chances were good that CDOT could make money on flipping the land it didn’t need.
Definitely enough to repay OEDIT, Shoshana Lew, CDOT’s executive director at the time, reassured commissioners.
None of that is happening.
CDOT will sell the 58 acres of Burnham Yard to the Denver Broncos, who are proposing to build a new stadium on the site, , less than what it paid.
After a deeper dive, CDOT nixed its original plans for transit improvements and found the land was more contaminated than expected. It also realized that straightening out I-25 was going to cost billions of dollars it didn’t have.
But not all was lost. A $4 billion football could go into the area, with transit upgrades to serve that new use.
And as for the $7.5 million loan that is owed to OEDIT, only $2.5 million will go back into the state’s Strategic Fund, which is used to recruit employers and fund economic development programs across the state.
The fund has about $3.8 million left.
“What we are asking for today is to convert $5 million of the $7.5 million overall loan into a grant to make the rest of the infrastructure commitments that we’ve made happen,” Lisa Kaufmann, strategic adviser to Gov. Jared Polis, told the Economic Development Commission on Thursday morning.
The money would help fund a relocation of the main rail line, improve road access from Interstate 25, and eliminate three at-grade rail crossings.
For the “modest investment” in public infrastructure, the state would get billions of dollars in private investment, Kaufmann said.
And if that weren’t enough to sway the commissioners, Kaufmann reminded them that the reason the Strategic Fund even had the dollars to lend out was that she had lobbied to get $40 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds in there.
That $1.9 trillion federal program included $350 billion to help state and local governments recover from the pandemic.
After going into an executive session, the commissioners approved the request.
Colorado lost jobs last year and is struggling to add residents, an area that the Strategic Fund helps address.
But the state also faces a $1.5 billion shortfall for the upcoming fiscal year, a gap more severe than what it faced in 2021 when it borrowed the $7.5 million from OEDIT.
