In the best-case scenario, the neighborhood’s current residents and businesses will flourish. Sports fans and concertgoers will pass through the area respectfully on their way to events, learning about the community’s history and immersing themselves in the local culture and arts. They will shop at the nearby stores and restaurants. They won’t litter.

But in an alternate reality — one that has played out elsewhere — the future could look much bleaker. In that scenario, growing property tax bills and rent prices will force the current residents to move out. National chains will replace local businesses. Traffic will overload the streets.

And someday in the not-too-distant future, strangers will wander through the neighborhood with no idea of the people who once lived there.

“Our history has been that when massive development comes into a community, the memories evaporate,” said Tony Garcia, who grew up near Lincoln Park. “And everybody who came in here after that, it just doesn’t matter anymore.”

In the coming months, a group of community advocates, including Garcia, will work with the team’s ownership to try to find as many ways as possible to avoid the latter and aim as close as they can for that other, happier scenario.

When the process is over, both sides hope to agree to a legally binding “community benefits agreement,” commonly referred to as a CBA.

, developers typically agree to take on various projects intended to offset the impact of a development and help the surrounding area, such as by building affordable housing, creating youth programs and commissioning local artists for new work. The agreements can take months or even years to complete.

The CBA coalition for the Broncos stadium, which is called Burnham Yard Community Action, plans to announce Tuesday which organizations will be involved in the negotiations and what values the group will prioritize in the talks. In an interview with The Denver Post ahead of that announcement, coalition members described their hopes and fears for the process and gave an early look at their starting point for discussions.

It����ap not yet clear when the coalition will begin its negotiations with the team. It says the meetings won’t begin until the team’s owners provide more details on their planned development. A source with knowledge of the discussions around the negotiations said an initial meeting is expected to happen this month.

“We’re aware that the owners will need to pencil their numbers. They need to make sure this works for them. But we’re penciling, too,” said Gloria Leyba, a fourth-generation resident of the neighborhood and member of the coalition. “This is a community that has paid and paid and paid. And we’re going to come out even now.”

The coalition says this will be the first legally binding CBA negotiated by an NFL team with a community group, rather than with a government entity.

Other city neighborhoods containing major developments, like Elyria-Swansea’s National Western Center and Auraria’s redevelopment around Ball Arena, have also recently undergone CBA processes.

In a statement, Broncos President Damani Leech said the organization is looking forward to beginning the negotiations “with a shared sense of urgency and cooperation.”

“Throughout our history, the Broncos have invested deeply in our community through meaningful programs, partnerships and impact benefitting current and future generations,” he wrote in a statement provided through a team spokesperson. “That approach will continue to guide our organization as we engage thoughtfully and collaboratively with (the coalition).”

Denver City Councilwoman Jamie Torres, who represents the neighborhood, said she expected the CBA conversations to be different than some of the previous ones.

“This is a pretty unique place, so I think there are going to be things included in this agreement that maybe we’ve never seen before,” she said.

What will the CBA coalition ask for?

La Alma-Lincoln Park, founded in the 1880s, is located near the center of the city, southwest of downtown. The neighborhood, just north of Baker, is bordered by the South Platte River to the west, Speer Boulevard to the east, and Colfax and Sixth avenues to the north and south.

It����ap a predominantly Hispanic community and has one of the largest concentrations of Denver homes built before 1890, and it’s also home to the Art District on Santa Fe. In 2021, the city honoring the Chicano movement.

“We refer to this area as ‘el corazón de la ciudad’ — the heart of the city. It has been since its inception,” said Garcia, who is also the executive artistic director of Su Teatro Cultural and Performing Arts Center. “What happens in this neighborhood reflects on everything else in the city.”

It����ap too early to know exactly which requests Burnham Yard Community Action might propose under the CBA. But the coalition, which is made up of 16 entities, has released a list of values it will carry into the negotiations.

The group has six main values: equity, housing, youth and education, economic empowerment, quality of life, and the arts, according to the list provided to The Post.

Within each of those values, there are more specific ideas for possible projects, including building housing affordability, expanding childcare options and creating opportunities for local artists.

The group also wants to prevent residents from being displaced, build “long-lasting community wealth,” promote small businesses and support youth education.

Overall, its members want their community and its history to be celebrated and preserved — and, where possible, improved. They want their children and grandchildren to be able to grow up in the community where they’re from.

“As I work my way through my 70s, I understand that the biggest gifts that we can give to the generations to come is memory,” Garcia said.

In the interview with The Post, representatives of the group declined to go into further detail on some of the listed values, including  “supporting reparations for communities that have been historically harmed.”

Many voices, and much work remains

The coalition consists of 16 organizations ranging from housing advocacy groups and nonprofits to arts districts and neighborhood groups. It includes neighborhood organizations for Baker, Sun Valley, La Alma and La Alma-Lincoln Park. Two trade unions are also included in the list.

The Art District on Santa Fe, the Denver Housing Authority, and Denver Indian Health and Family Services are also members.

Former Councilwoman Robin Kniech is a consultant and spokesperson for the group.

Meanwhile, the Broncos still have many steps ahead before construction crews can break ground on the stadium and other development the team is planning for Burnham Yard. The team plans to dedicate most of the site’s acreage to a future entertainment district, including mixed-use developments, open space, a park and a tailgate area.

The team’s owners still must finalize their acquisition of the 58-acre parcel, including by relocating much of Denver Water’s campus elsewhere. Environmental cleanup crews will then have to prepare the land for construction.

The council also must approve a small area plan, a rezoning request, a development agreement and any requests for tax-increment financing. The Denver Urban Renewal Authority is now studying the site to determine whether that financing tool can be used.

In the past, the council has waited to approve many of those requests until after a CBA is finalized with the community.

Torres, the councilwoman, said she expected that to happen again for the Burnham Yard negotiations.

“We could still be moving things through the process while the CBA is underway, but when we get to a final vote, we’ve got to know that the community feels okay with this,” she said.

It����ap an aggressive timeline for the stadium to be finished by the team’s target of the 2031 season, which comes shortly after the Broncos’ lease expires at Empower Field at the end of the 2030 season. Broncos officials have said construction crews would need to begin work around this time next year in order to meet that deadline.

Burnham Yard sits on land once inhabited by the Ute and Cheyenne tribes, and so one member of the 26 various constituents on the city’s Small Area Plan community advisory committee offered a prayer to an Indigenous mother and the stars at a Wednesday night gathering.

They prayed for peace in the La Alma Lincoln Park community. And they prayed for peace, too, in this meeting.

After long enough, though, discussion grew contentious around the future of Eighth Avenue, a thoroughfare that stretches east from Sun Valley all the way to Montclair, into the Broncos’ plans for a new stadium district at Burnham Yard. In late March, the Broncos submitted their initial infrastructure master plan on the Burnham redevelopment to the city and Eighth Avenue serves as a primary artery for flow in and out of the district.

A section of the infrastructure master plan proposes both a curved and expanded three-lane Eighth Avenue. For nearly 30 minutes Wednesday night, the Small Area Plan community advisory committee — comprised of local community members and representatives from the Broncos, RTD and the Colorado Department of Transportation alike — deliberated on the influx and outflow of traffic that could bring to the historic La Alma Lincoln Park neighborhood.

Some were supportive. Helen Giron-Mushfiq, of the La Alma Neighborhood Association, told The Post the next day that the expansion of Eighth Avenue would be the best way to “get people out of the area” on game days.

Others were not.

“It’s like,” one neighborhood-association member chimed in, “how would you like your displacement to look?”

Amid the push-and-pull, the city of Denver and the Broncos continue to march toward a Small Area Plan for the organization’s new mixed-use stadium district, which the city — according to slides presented to advisory-committee members Wednesday — expects to put in front of the City Council late this year .

“The initial submission of our Infrastructure Master Plan in March represents an early step in a collaborative, ongoing process with the city and community,” Broncos chief communications officer Patrick Smyth told The Post. “As we shape this vision at Burnham Yard together, the plan will continue to evolve to best integrate with the surrounding neighborhoods and reflect community needs.”

The initial submission shows the most detailed look yet at the organization’s plans for the new stadium district at Burnham, from a proposed layout of several parking structures to a breakdown of the district’s different areas.

A ‘tailgate park,’ and more information on district features

At an initial community meeting hosted by the Broncos in February, plan architect Sasaki confirmed that the total size of the stadium district at Burnham had expanded to 150 acres. Two months later, the infrastructure master plan now offers a glimpse of what’ll actually lie inside.

The stadium itself will take up just 30 to 35 of those acres, according to the plan. The rest will be a combination of mixed-use development (50 to 60 acres), public and private streets (25 to 30 acres), and “open space” (15 to 20 acres) — including a planned “neighborhood park” in a cluster of buildings just west of La Alma Lincoln Park and a “linear park” to the immediate southwest of West Sixth Ave and Osage Street. A previously outlined “tailgate area” has now been labeled a “tailgate park,” located directly south of the stadium and Eighth Avenue.

The plan, too, describes this Burnham development as divided into “five distinct development zones.” One of them — sitting to the east of a new main north-to-south thoroughfare next to the stadium dubbed “Broncos Way” — is an “Entertainment Zone,” likely to encapsulate anything from a potential new concert venue to shopping outlets, restaurants, a hotel and more.

“The Entertainment Zone serves as a high-energy destination with a dense, intimate urban form and curated retail experiences,” the plan reads.

Another area, the “North Zone,” is described as “residential in focus” and “designed to complement La Alma Lincoln Park.” The Broncos have discussed building a hotel inside the district in conversations with community constituents, and connected apartment complexes have become a wider staple of modern mixed-use stadium districts.

From a local planning and economic perspective, The Post sent the Broncos’ infrastructure master plan to Brad Segal, the director of the Denver-based real estate and planning firm . Segal said he was “particularly struck” by the Broncos’ vision to preserve and renovate existing historical aspects of the railyard — such as an abandoned locomotive shop, which team officials have discussed internally developing into a food hall.

Segal, though, noted one immediate concern: the placement of that “Entertainment Zone” directly adjacent to the La Alma Lincoln Park neighborhood, a working-class, majority-Latino community that experienced widespread displacement in the 1970s with the construction of the Auraria campus. Those “scars run deep,” as Segal said — a fact clear in ongoing Small Area Plan committee discussions, as community members like Giron-Mushfiq simply aren’t comfortable with any kind of large-scale development so close to a historic neighborhood.

“We don’t trust ’em,” Giron-Mushfiq said. “We’ll put it lightly.”

There aren’t many places the Broncos could reposition that district without bumping up against the neighborhood. And theoretically, that placement would allow La Alma residents to enjoy such amenities, as Segal pointed. The draw, too, could attract more foot traffic to businesses along the Art District on Santa Fe.

“But, if it results in pushing up housing costs, rental rates, property values – that����ap going to force many people to leave who maybe don’t want to leave because of the economic pressure,” Segal said. “And acknowledging the history of the neighborhood and what it has already endured 50 to 60 years ago — I would say residents would be justified in fearing those types of pressures and changes moving forward.”

Parking and transit information, with Eighth Avenue the key

In the plan’s executive summary, the Broncos describe the light rail station at 10th and Osage as “the district’s heart” and later refer to it as “anchoring a transit-oriented framework.”

That would hinge on the district’s ability to attract foot traffic through RTD lines, as RTD has seen a slight bump in ridership in recent months, according to the to the previous year. Community members and nearby residents, though, are heavily concerned about the impact of gameday and non-gameday traffic in the area — including those who have reviewed the Broncos’ most recent plan.

“There’s some things that I like about it,” Giron-Mushfiq said, who’s on the Small Area Plan advisory committee. “But the biggest problem is they haven’t really addressed the parking.”

They do, in some sense. The plan envisions 5,000 to 7,500 available parking spaces on gamedays, with a mixture of seven different below-grade, above-ground and surface parking lots. On gameday, too, the plan anticipates a majority of traffic flow both entering the district from Eighth Avenue to the west and from Sixth Avenue to the south.

The Broncos, however, are proposing a slew of significant road changes with those traffic patterns: realigning West Eighth Avenue further south, removing some existing infrastructure from West Sixth Avenue, and proposing future on and off-ramps that align with planned $50 million repairs — — to the Sixth Avenue viaduct.

“For Eighth Avenue, the background traffic, the additional traffic from the development and then the complexity of the roadway — traveling over rail lines like light rail, whether it remains grade separated — there’s a huge amount of complexity there and I couldn’t guess how it will turn out,” Stephen Wilson, a senior development project administrator with the city, told The Post. “Some of them, I have a pretty good idea. I’ve done this long enough where I have a pretty good sense of how it will turn out.

“I can’t tell how Eighth is going to turn out yet.”

It is likely, though, to be one of the most high-profile infrastructure projects around the stadium and perhaps one of the most costly. The stadium itself is set to be fully paid for by the Walton-Penner Group. Infrastructure to construct roads and sidewalks around the district, however, will be funded by a combination of state and city funding, as Mayor Mike Johnston told The Post in September.

“I see a big dollar bill right next to, ‘How do we improve infrastructure for egress?’” said Geoffrey Propheter, a professor at the CU Denver School of Public Affairs .

Propheter also noted that infrastructure will likely be funded through the potential implementation of a tax-increment financing district, a form of public subsidy that would borrow against expected future growth in tax revenue within the Broncos’ stadium district and apply that revenue to infrastructure costs on the front end. The Denver Urban Renewal Authority is conducting a study of Burnham Yard to determine whether the area is “blighted” under Colorado state law, which would set in motion the TIF process.

Phases of implementation

So what’s next? A three-phase approach to development at Burnham, according to the plan. And a three-step approach inside of that first phase.

“The plan follows the typical blueprint, which is stadium first, non-stadium second,” Propheter said.

The Broncos, though, do intend to address key elements of the surrounding stadium district while constructing the stadium itself, still targeting a 2031 opening. Phase 1A, the plan details, will involve environmental cleanup and roadway and transit construction. Phase 1B will involve the construction of parking facilities. Phase 1C, meanwhile, will see the Broncos begin construction on their “Entertainment Zone.”

Stephen Wilson called the Broncos’ plan to first build out infrastructure and then supporting facilities “absolutely logical.” The plan defines Phases 2 and 3 as more general construction in northern and southern parts of the district — likely involving residential properties — which Wilson said would be largely market-driven.

“So if next year, multifamily housing, financing is great and demand is great, if employment and people’s ability to pay for rental places is great … the conditions could change, and then some of that could come online a lot faster,” Wilson said. “Or interest rates could remain high, construction costs could remain high, and it might take more time.”

Regardless of how exactly the phases are developed, there are a broad set of processes, negotiations, discussions and decisions to be made in the coming months at various levels of government and among and between neighborhood groups and the Broncos.

“We’re definitely very concerned with the impacts and then the impression of the impacts and understanding the breadth of those and the magnitude of those and addressing concerns,” Wilson said. “It����ap also balanced against city building, and when we look at overall citywide, we do need infill development overall. We do need additional housing. We’re supporting housing and affordability as a city in all the ways we can, but there are also macroscopic market factors that we’re trying to work with, too.

“That����ap the fun part about city building. That����ap why I love doing this job is it����ap hard to come up with a good city that works for everybody. That����ap certainly the goal.”

The Broncos’ run to AFC’s top seed and eventually the conference championship game not only stamped Sean Payton’s team as a true title contender, it also translated into record demand ahead of the 2026 season.

The club’s season ticket renewal window closed recently with a 99.5% renewal rate, team president Damani Leech told The Post this week, the highest mark on record for the Broncos.

“That����ap an all-time record for the Broncos, which is great,” Leech told The Post. “We expect that to put us near the tops of the league. We’re consistently in the top five, so we certainly expect that. More deeply, it����ap just one more reflection of the strength of our fanbase. ����apountry is an incredible fanbase. Winning helps, it also says. But I talked with our staff after the season ended and said, this is about us being prepared for on-field success. When you do all the other things around fans — ingress and egress appropriately, you’re providing good food and beverages, you’re providing great game entertainment experience, that on top of winning football leads to season-ticket renewals like we had this year.”

The Broncos are no strangers to strong renewal rates. They hit 98% a year ago and, since 2016, have averaged 97.7% renewals, according to data provided by the club.

The record renewal rate comes despite the club raising season-ticket prices by an average of 9% for the 2026 season. That increase is in line with the league average and slightly below the average increase of postseason teams a year ago.

Leech said the club consistently has an eye on affordability throughout the ticket pricing process and the season-ticket renewal process.

“It����ap a real part of our analysis,” Leech said. “One, philosophically, you understand that our fanbase is pretty diverse across a lot of different spectrums, one of which is going to be income. We want to provide experiences for fans across a variety of income levels. When we’re going through our pricing exercises as we plan for season-ticket renewals, we definitely think about that. We’ll ask ourselves questions: How much is it for a family of four? How many seats are priced below a certain level? What percentage of the bowl is that? Those sorts of things are part of our analysis.”

Demand for Broncos tickets has been strong across the board. In addition to the record renewal rate, the average secondary market price for tickets last year was about 50% above face value. The club has a season-ticket wait list that currently stands at 107,000. Pick a metric and it����ap likely to show fans want more.

“It����ap certainly the strongest demand that I’ve seen,” said Leech, who was hired as the team’s president in August 2022 as the Walton-Penner Family Ownership Group finalized purchasing the Broncos. “(Season-ticket renewal) is one of the leading indicators of that. Your season-ticket members, the people who say ‘I’m committed to this experience year in and year out’ — how often are they saying that they want more of that next year? When you see that at 99.5%, that is a really, really strong indicator of success and the strength of your fanbase.”

The Broncos are set to host eight regular-season games and two preseason games in 2026. Those years are sometimes not as attractive as the alternating years when AFC teams host nine regular-season games and one preseason, but Denver’s regular-season home slate is strong. In addition to AFC West division foes Kansas City, the Los Angeles Chargers and Las Vegas, Denver hosts Miami and then four 2025 playoff teams in Buffalo, Jacksonville, the Los Angeles Rams and Super Bowl champion Seattle.

“It’s a really good home slate,” Leech said. “It should make for some exciting games.”

Every year, there are playoff teams that fall and bottom dwellers that make a surprising run to the postseason.

Sometimes the malaise lasts — it did in Denver for nearly a decade after winning Super Bowl 50. Sometimes it doesn’t — would it surprise anybody if Kansas City and three-time Super Bowl champion Patrick Mahomes were back in contention this fall?

Even in a sport where the wide-open on-field product is a feature rather than a bug, there are still power players and power centers.

As the NFL spring owners meetings in Phoenix wrapped up a couple of weeks ago with black SUVs idling to whisk multimillionaires and billionaires from the Arizona Biltmore to waiting jets, the Broncos had provided plenty of material to fill reporters’ notebooks.

On the field, Sean Payton and George Paton discussed the acquisition of Jaylen Waddle, the decision to move Jonah Elliss to inside linebacker, the upcoming draft and more.

Away from it, owner and ����apEO Greg Penner and president Damani Leech turned up the pressure on the club’s Burnham Yard stadium project, talked about their new, $175 million team headquarters nearing completion, the impact of hosting an AFC Championship Game and coming within four points of the Super Bowl and more.

Tangible stuff. Quite a bit of it.

Less obvious in some ways but just as palpable: The reality that, as they approach five years owning the Broncos, Greg Penner and Carrie Walton Penner are a growing power center in the NFL. Their stature is growing similarly in Denver and the state of Colorado, too.

Those points were driven home further on Friday when the couple, through their family entity Penner Sports Group, finalized the purchase of a 40% stake in the Colorado Rockies.

The Penners are not going anywhere with the Broncos and the NFL. They will not have day-to-day roles with the Rockies, sources told The Post, and they are plenty busy with football.

Not only are they waist-deep in the myriad, complex processes and business dealings that come with trying to build a new stadium and entertainment district — a project that, if everything progresses roughly along the team’s preferred timeline, will last another five-plus years — but they are set to move into their new HQ in June. They’ll be in the team’s draft room all three days, as they always are, later this month. They are overseeing projects like the team’s $8 million “All In. All Covered.” high school helmet program and other community initiatives. They’ll likely work out a contract extension with general manager George Paton in the coming months. On and on and on.

That����ap just the team. Between the pair, they also now serve on seven NFL ownership committees.

Carrie Walton-Penner: Health and safety, diversity and the NFL foundation.

Greg Penner: The powerful labor committee, compensation, ownership policy and finance.

Those committee assignments put Penner in the middle of the league figuring out whether and now how to invite private equity money into team ownership groups, determining compensation for commissioner Roger Goodell and, in the coming months and years, negotiating first with the NFL Referees Association on a new collective bargaining agreement and then with the NFL Players Association on the same. The biggest story at this year’s league meetings was about whether replacement referees will be needed this fall. As soon as next year, conversations about extending the NFL season to 18 games, growing the international slate, negotiations about player revenue shares and more will likely dominate the conversation.

Essentially, the Penners are in some way, shape or form involved in virtually every core issue the league will tackle in the short and intermediate future and probably the longer-range future as well.

Friday’s announcement about the Rockies stake changes nothing. It remains to be seen just how much their investment in Dick Monfort����ap team will be felt or seen immediately, though it very clearly puts the club in a much better cash position than it previously was.

It remains to be seen, too, to what degree the Rockies become part of the Penners’ overall influence and impact on Denver and Colorado sports. Perhaps it will be in the background for years and decades to come. Perhaps not.

What is clear this spring, though, is that they’ve gone from the new owners on the NFL block to among the league’s foremost figures in less than a half-decade. Ownership groups around the NFL have most certainly taken notice.

Along the way, the club has returned to prominence on the field and has planned a major facelift for part of central Denver.

In Phoenix recently and in the aftermath of Friday’s announcement, though, this all feels like it����ap still closer to the beginning than the pinnacle of the Penners’ influence in football and on the Front Range.

After months bandying about the term joker to describe his team’s need for a matchup-threat pass-catcher, Sean Payton sat with the media at the NFL owners’ meetings in Palm Beach, Florida, last year and confirmed Denver had gotten its guy. The Evan Engram signing was the Broncos’ chips-in move, and Payton told reporters that the Broncos had successfully convinced the tight end to sign in part because of that vision of his role: a chaos agent that could be shifted at will to take advantage of opposing defenses.

“Having had players like him,” Payton said then in Florida, “I’m excited.”

Engram’s potential supervillainy for opposing defenses, however, never quite reached its full potential. A year later, the Broncos have swung on another piece who can be a ceiling-raiser for Payton’s offense: receiver Jaylen Waddle, whose arrival has evidently excited Denver’s head coach so much that . After Engram played just 42% of Denver’s snaps last year, though, Payton will face months of questions on how he plans to utilize the speedy Waddle. Particularly considering the Broncos’ haul to trade for him and a fourth-rounder (sending their 2026 first-round and third-round pick to Miami).

That process will begin on Monday in Phoenix at this year’s league meetings, where the Broncos’ brass will gather for their most extensive media availability since the end-of-year press conferences in late January. General manager George Paton, owner Greg Penner and president Damani Leech are all slated to speak to reporters Monday, while Payton will talk at a coaches’ roundtable Tuesday morning.

It’ll be a chance to gather broad insights into how Denver’s decision-makers view the decisions that have shaped their offseason, as well as a host of key topics that’ll shape 2026 training camp and beyond. Here are 10 questions that bear answering in Arizona this coming week.

How do the Broncos plan to get the most out of Waddle?

Denver, again, does not have a first-round pick in 2026. The Waddle trade, by simple math, is contingent on the fact that he can provide more value across the next few seasons than a theoretical draftee at pick No. 30 could provide. That’s significant. Particularly since Payton organizations haven’t traded for a wide receiver since Bethel Johnson in 2006.

Waddle played 60% of his snaps from the slot as a rookie in 2021 for the Dolphins, but saw his usage there hover around 25% for the last four seasons under Mike McDaniel. It’ll be fascinating to see if Payton views Waddle more as an inside or outside threat, and how he can open defenses up for Courtland Sutton and the rest of Denver’s current WR corps.

So, uh, what did ‘opportunistically aggressive’ mean to you guys?

This Penner term, said in his postseason presser, . It was ridiculed as the Broncos sat pretty in free agency and signed back most of the pieces of their 2025 corps to short-term deals. It was then praised as the Broncos swung the blockbuster Waddle deal.

Denver’s free-agency approach, though, was interesting by all accounts — set strict market caps at running back and tight end, test the waters on a variety of pieces but never actually make an offer, and let John Franklin-Myers walk for a likely fourth-round compensation pick in 2027. Were the Broncos trying to preserve cap space in the years before an eventual Bo Nix extension? Is that fourth-round pick really that valuable? Was Payton really so focused on that he declined to gather any free-agency intel (mostly kidding)?

“Free agency was tough,” Payton told Kay Adams in that video.

Hmm.

Where does the timeline stand for the new stadium at Burnham Yard?

The Colorado Department of Transportation has officially set a price on the Burnham Yard sale to the Broncos — $45.8 million, a deal scheduled to be finalized May 15. The Broncos’ public messaging, however, is adamant that the area remains a “preferred site,” as the franchise has a variety of factors to iron out that are quietly making the planned 2031 stadium opening a bit tricky.

The Broncos are still working through negotiations with public utility Denver Water, which is eyeing Lot M of the current Empower Field site for part of its facility relocation — a move that could bring some city-planning issues. Broncos officials are also still working through negotiations with SRM Concrete, which owns a concrete plant and several pieces of land smack-dab in the middle of the proposed Burnham stadium area that total an appraised property value . And negotiations with the La Alma Lincoln Park neighborhood on a community-benefits agreement have yet to begin.

How’s Bo Nix?

Duh. Any news about Nix’s ankle rehab has been quiet since the Broncos quarterback took to the media to quell concerns about a preexisting ankle issue following some strange post-season messaging from Payton.

The only Nix update since then has come in early March, when he and wife Izzy announced the birth of their first child (and Izzy also took a picture of Nix walking out of the hospital without a boot). In the grand scheme of things, much more important than Nix’s ankle. But Nix also made clear that he’d be back for OTAs in May, an important step in his rehab. It’ll be important for the Broncos’ brass to note if he’s still on track there.

How do Payton and Paton view their needs now, after free agency?

This encompasses several key sub-questions. Are the Broncos comfortable with running back their J.K. Dobbins-RJ Harvey-Tyler Badie-Jaleel McLaughlin quadrant at running back? (Probably not, if pre-draft activity is any indication). Are they looking to move on from Engram, or trying to unlock him at tight end under new play-caller Davis Webb? Are they set with Alex Singleton and Justin Strnad as their starting ILB duo for 2026, and why did they cut Dre Greenlaw? Do they want to replace Franklin-Myers through the draft, the external market, or internal development?

Make no mistake, as healthy top-to-bottom as Denver is, there are still a few notable holes on this roster. This week should provide some strong hints at how the Broncos see their roster now.

The more eagle-eyed members of the Grading The Week team said the same thing many of you did when we saw some of the plans revealed by the Broncos at a community meeting Thursday night.

Parking at Burnham Yard — Incomplete

The Broncos aren’t just the state’s NFL team. They’re the region’s. The time zone’s. Folks drive in from Nebraska and Wyoming and New Mexico and Montana to watch Bo Nix do his magic tricks.

The GTW crew loves RTD as much as the next guy or gal, but let’s keep some common sense in mind here. It would be great to keep the tailgating scene in mind, too. — behind only the college-like scenes in Dallas (No. 1) and Buffalo (No. 2). And ahead of the more famous lots in Kansas City (No. 4).

All well and good on the regional front, you say, but Cubs fans don’t generally park around Wrigley Field, right? That’s true. But the football community, the football game-day experience, isn’t quite the same as a baseball one, is it? Over the course of the season, the Cubs might host four or five games in a given week. The Broncos probably won’t have more than three home games in any given month from August-January.

Every moment with the Orange and Blue feels like a rock concert — a communal, tribal thing that binds a city of different creeds, colors, and political persuasions. In one of the most polarizing eras in American history, the Broncos are one of the few things almost everybody along the Front Range can agree on. And they’ll almost all agree that it wouldn’t be the same without tailgating. Or the parking lots that make such a vibrant tailgating scene possible.

The Walton-Penner Group hasn’t really put a foot wrong since acquiring the team late in the summer of 2022. The new owners have pushed for facility and stadium upgrades on their dime, while continuing to respect the traditions fans have held dear for more than 65 years. They’ve recognized that the Broncos aren’t just their toy, or some property on a Monopoly board. That the franchise is a beloved civic heirloom, a pillar of Colorado pride and a bedrock of Denver culture.

Broncos president Damani Leech told reporters Thursday that the team controls about 7,000 parking spaces presently at Empower Field — and that he expects a similar amount of spaces at the new stadium site “eventually.” Won’t lie: The “eventually” part doesn’t exactly boost our tailgating hopes.

The common man and common fan are already going to be squeezed hard enough if Personal Seat Licenses, or PSLs, do indeed become a reality for ����apountry. Broncomaniacs make memories for life inside Empower Field. But they’ve made friends for life through portable grills, giant coolers, generators and truck beds that double as buffet tables. And Broncos game days aren’t truly Broncos game days without them.

DU men’s hoops surge — A-minus

Is there something in the water along Asbury Avenue? The DU Pioneers’ gymnastics team continues to set the pace for the region. And the men’s hoops team heads into Sunday’s visit to Omaha having won three straight conference games for the first time since February 2018. In a year where, among local squads, only CU women’s basketball has real hope for an at-large March Madness berth, the GTW bracketologists are looking forward to seeing the Pios and UNC make some noise at the Summit and Big Sky league tournaments, respectively.

La Alma Lincoln Park residents got their first taste of what’s to come at an open house in November. A community advisory committee for the city’s small area plan at Burnham has met three times since October and received proposed updates on pathways to the stadium site at a Jan. 21 meeting.

But La Alma Lincoln residents — and Denver residents at large — still have been trying to understand the actual size and community traffic to expect with the Broncos’ new stadium, as resident Felix Herzog told The Denver Post.

“The (community advisory) committee was fantastic at creating the language that defined equity and access to resources and what we want out of this entire project,” Herzog said. “What I haven’t seen yet so far is what the final design is going to look like.”

That final design is still a ways off. But on Thursday night, at a community information meeting hosted by the Broncos at the La Alma Recreation Center, a crowd received the most detail yet as to the scope of the franchise’s planned mixed-use development at Burnham.

In a presentation outlining the Broncos’ initial vision, Sasaki architect Josh Brooks — who’s leading design on the stadium’s development plan — told community members that the actual stadium area has expanded to 150 acres and said the stadium itself is positioned to the western edge of the region to ensure noise will be “as far away from (La Alma) community as possible.” An updated rendering presented to residents at the meeting outlined a potential tailgate area just south of the stadium, with a swath of surface parking slightly farther south below West Sixth Avenue.

Broncos president Damani Leech told reporters the actual stadium capacity is “still TBD” but said the organization is planning for “between 5 and 7 million square feet of development.”

“So hopefully, people feel good that it’s not going to be a bunch of skyscrapers right up against the residential neighborhood,” Leech said.

The Broncos also presented ideas on preliminary phasing for a mixed-use district around the new stadium at Burnham Yard, with plans for preliminary “open space,” entertainment-district buildings and temporary parking lots all to be in place by the stadium’s opening in 2031. Those parking areas, Brooks said, eventually could be built upon with other commercial buildings, similar to an underground garage.

Meeting organizers also polled the audience on a slew of questions related to stadium development, including preferred kinds of mixed-use structures inside the stadium district. Community members were also asked their primary concern around the Broncos’ new stadium: Attendees voted overwhelmingly for traffic congestion and impacts on property taxes for housing in the area.

“I have mixed feelings about this,” 49-year-old La Alma resident Christy Shinbara told The Post, “because we just don’t want any of our neighbors displaced. … A lot of them are scared about what’s going to happen to everybody.”

The poll results mirrored similar concerns discussed in the small area plan advisory committee’s previous meetings. Committee member Christina Eyre told The Post that the group had concerns over proposed designs presented in a Jan. 21 meeting for pedestrian crossings across the nearby RTD rail line at 10th Avenue, Ninth Avenue and Eighth Avenue, given the crossings’ immediate proximity to several homes in La Alma Lincoln Park.

As part of their presentation Thursday, the Broncos also are proposing to extend an RTD rail line through Burnham up and over West 13th Avenue, creating an underpass for cars and pedestrians to pass beneath.

“I think there’s a lot more work to be done on, actually, what that looks like and what the community wants,” said David Gaspers, a special projects supervisor in community planning and development with the city, speaking on access to Burnham. “At-grade crossings, especially with that many trains, is something that we need to think about thoroughly.”

Multiple members of the small area plan committee confirmed to The Post that the plan is expected to be completed by the end of 2026, as the Broncos work concurrently on a large development plan. The organization also presented an updated timeline Thursday, noting expectations for a community-benefits agreement to be completed early in 2027 and actual stadium construction to begin midway through the same year.

For now, community members still met Thursday’s slew of new information with equal doses of curiosity and skepticism. Herzog noted that planned construction on parking areas would put “a lot of stress on the community.” Others were more positive.

“It’s honestly exciting … if it goes the way they say,” Shinbara said. “It sounds like they have our best interests at heart.”

They’re already turning their attention to 2026 in many ways, though. That includes the opening of the club’s season ticket renewal window Thursday, which this year comes with an average 9% increase in the price of season tickets and a demand that only grew more intense through a 2025 season that came up one game short of the Super Bowl.

Denver has a 99% season-ticket renewal intent, senior vice president of strategy and business intelligence Jesse Nading told The Post, and its season-ticket wait list currently sits at 107,000.

On the secondary market, tickets sold for more than 50% above the season-ticket rate in 2025, a big jump over recent seasons.

All of those factors and more help the club arrive at a price point for season tickets each year.

“We try to be as consistent as possible in our approach,” Nading said. “We really try to make sure we’re taking a data-driven, market-based approach. Really the focus is to make sure the tickets are fairly and competitively priced on a year-in, year-out basis. For this year, that����ap going to be right around a 9% increase. That����ap right around the league average and well below playoff team averages.”

Nading said the club also “tries to balance affordability,” and noted that almost half general admission tickets in 2026 will be priced at less than $150 per seat.

“For us, we’re looking at trends around the league,” he added. “A lot of those different data points in addition to what is the renewal rate? What is the satisfaction? Are people happy and do they feel like they’re getting good value? What are the survey scores? All of those we look at to try to triangulate what is an appropriate amount for us to adjust prices in any one year.”

Fans in 2025 saw Sean Payton’s team go 8-1 at home in the regular season and host a pair of postseason games, including a 33-30 overtime win against Buffalo in the Divisional round and a 10-7 loss to New England in the AFC title game.

“You created the best homefield advantage in the NFL, fueling a league-high nine home wins, our first AFC West title in a decade and the return of the AFC Championship Game to Empower Field at Mile High,” Broncos president Damani Leech wrote in a letter sent to season ticket holders announcing the renewal window Thursday. “����apountry brought the Rocky Mountain Thunder, disrupting our opponents while standing with us for every snap, score and comeback.”

The secondary market is a key indicator on where demand for tickets is. Part of the driver in 2025 for the 50% difference was having high-profile visitors like Dallas and Green Bay, but the Broncos’ success makes a big difference and, Nading says, so, too does the game day experience at Empower Field.

“We look at all those factors and certainly there’s some fluctuation on a year-in, year-out basis but for us it����ap a really strong marker of the demand,” he said. “For us, we price season tickets once a year, but ultimately that resale market is a really good barometer for what the market����ap willingness to pay is for each ticket.

“It gives us a sense of the health of demand vs. where we’re pricing season tickets at.”

Nading noted recent surveys that ranked the Broncos No. 1 in overall game day experience and No. 2 in season-ticket holder satisfaction as reasons the club feels, “really good about the excitement around the team and the demand for tickets. We really look forward to continuing to have one of the best home-field advantages in all of sports. “

Denver will have eight home regular season games in 2026 plus two home preseason games. The Broncos’ home games in 2026 include their three AFC West opponents plus 2025 playoff teams in Buffalo, Jacksonville, Seattle and the Los Angeles Rams and also Miami and Arizona.

Wednesday evening’s event, at the La Alma Recreation Center just southwest of downtown, brought residents out to offer up ideas on what they want to see at the sprawling stadium site and surrounding mixed-use development that would be built just over the railroad tracks to the west.

“The concern that we have is the current residents who are here now — keeping it affordable for (them),” resident Misty Lubin-Salazar told Denver Mayor Mike Johnston during the event. Lubin-Salazar said she wanted some reassurance that she and her daughter, who slept soundly in her stroller nearby, would still be able to live in their neighborhood once the stadium development is complete.

Lubin-Salazar was among dozens of people who voiced their concerns and hopes for the project at the Wednesday evening event. Several people interviewed by The Denver Post, including Lubin-Salazar, seemed curious and open to hearing about how negative impacts could be mitigated — rather than firmly opposed to the project altogether.

Informational and interactive boards lined the gym walls in the rec center. Officials from the team and city stood at each one, giving brief presentations and answering questions. Attendees were given sticky notes to write out their ideas.

One station gave residents colorful stickers to place underneath a list of values — things like year-round community focus and celebrating history and culture — to indicate which ones they thought were most important.

After hearing representatives discussing issues like equity, transportation and affordability, Athmar Park resident Colleen Wallace said it seemed that the team was well aware of the potential concerns residents would have.

“I came out because I really wanted to see how the city and Broncos are engaging the community on this huge project,” she said. “I’m very impressed, honestly.”

The meeting was the first step in developing a , which will outline how the community wants to see the neighborhood grow and develop.

Burnham Yard is a long, narrow 58-acre site, and the team is also acquiring 25 acres from Denver Water’s campus and more private parcels that will bring the total footprint to more than 100 acres. Most of that is in La Alma Lincoln Park.

The first step in the process comes two and a half months after the team announced that Burnham Yard was its preferred location for the next stadium. The team’s lease at Empower Field at Mile High expires in early 2031.

Some used the event to offer their concerns about how the project could impact the surrounding area’s affordability, ease of transportation and community feel.

Bonnie and Douglas Marts, residents of the Golden Triangle neighborhood, said that even though they live a couple neighborhoods away from the site, they’re worried about the lack of planned parking.

“We live there and will have to monitor when events are happening, because you won’t be able to park on the street,” Bonnie said.

Team leaders have said there will be some on-site parking at the stadium, along with integrated parking options in the residential and commercial parts of the district.

The Broncos and Denver officials have said they plan to shift away from the model at Empower Field, which is surrounded by a massive parking lot, to instead create a mixed-use district with housing, shopping and restaurants. There is a light rail stop next to the site, and state officials also hope to someday have a Front Range Rail station nearby to bring in fans from other cities like Fort Collins and Pueblo.

The lack of major surface parking is exactly what other residents are excited about. Jared Morgan, 30, bought a home next to the site four years ago and said he’s looking forward to the stadium activating more of the neighborhood.

“What I was mainly concerned about is it just turning into a huge parking lot,” he said.

Earlier this month, the Broncos submitted a large-area redevelopment plan to the city, which included preliminary details about where the team’s future stadium and surrounding entertainment district will go. The plan included a map outlining the general locations for various parts of the development, along with potential new roadways.

The preliminary plan suggests the stadium will be directly east of a BNSF Railway freight line running through Burnham Yard, on the western portion of the railyard, and directly south of an extended West 11th Avenue and Denver Water’s headquarters.

Alex Parks, a Villa Park resident, said he hopes the project might offer a new way for bikers and pedestrians to safely cross I-25 into the central part of downtown.

Tsinni Russell, 31, said he hopes the project can be a boon for neighboring communities like Sun Valley across the river.

“It sucks that you need a white pony to get people to care about a part of the city that����ap full of brown people,” Russell said, referring to the Broncos mascot.

The mayor and Broncos president Damani Leech both attended the event and spoke with attendees.

“I love seeing the sticky notes on all the boards,” Leech told a Post reporter. “Some of the things, people are being really candid and honest about what they’re excited about, what they’re concerned about. That����ap what we’re hoping to get out of this.”

Johnston said he hopes the extended timeframe will allow people to get their questions answered and provide what they want to see happen in their community.

“What would be a win for us is people who have been here 80 years still feeling home here — and folks that just moved to Denver a year from now would also want to buy their first apartment here,” he said.

Two more community meetings are planned for the first half of 2026, according to a timeline posted at the event.

Other key steps, including an urban renewal plan, a development agreement, the large development review and a mobility study, will also begin this year. Negotiations over a community-benefits agreement also will begin soon.

The rezoning process for land in the area is set to begin next year, and construction is slated to begin in late 2027 and last through 2030.

Staff writer Parker Gabriel contributed to this story.

The Broncos are hosting a fan event at The Admiralty Club near Trafalgar Square on Saturday from 1-5 p.m. London time and a pub-to-pitch style parade beginning at 11 a.m. at The Antwerp Arms near Tottenham on Sunday.

The Broncos, of course, take on the New York Jets at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium Sunday and will try to run their winning streak to three after topping Philadelphia, 21-17.

“You make a trip like this overseas with a football-first mindset,” Broncos president Damani Leech told The Denver Post. “This is about the game and trying to get a win, but it����ap also an opportunity to connect with our existing fans and deepen our relationship with those fans. I found, last time we played there, not only are there Broncos fans from Colorado who made the trip, but there are Broncos fans from all across the U.S. and Canada who use it as an opportunity to go to a different away game site.

“Not to mention all the fans we have across the U.K., Ireland and across Europe. It����ap a great opportunity to deepen our relationship with those fans.”

The last time Denver played in London, Leech and the Walton-Penner Family Ownership Group had been on the job for a little more than two months. Now they’re well-established and have a better sense of what ����apountry looks like in the U.K.

They’ve got more than 1,200 fans signed up for their pair of events.

“Last time we played there, I was just genuinely surprised,” Leech said of the number of Broncos fans.

Denver’s partner in the NFL’s global markets program is Mexico — there haven’t been games there the past couple of years as Estadio Azteca gets renovated ahead of the 2026 World Cup — but the Broncos, “recognize that we have fans there and fans will be traveling, so we do want to use this as an opportunity to deepen our relationship with them.”

In addition to the weekend fan events, the Broncos are also hosting a flag football clinic for about 60 middle schoolers at Grey Court School in London, which Leech called a “really special” event that will feature Broncos owner Carrie Walton-Penner.

“We’ll have Miles, alumni and cheer,” Leech said. “The school is part of the NFL’s flag football program, and the team that����ap participating plays as the Broncos, so there’s a nice connection there with that group. That’ll be fun.

“It����ap great from a community standpoint, it����ap great from a flag football standpoint. That sport alone is just growing. It����ap really important to the league as a strategic lever, and obviously, it����ap going to be in the Olympics in L.A. in 2028. So for all those reasons, it made sense for us.”