Sean Keeler: Baby, you should drive that Carr. In a perfect world, you’re not just re-signing Peyton Watson this summer. You’re sticking his profile into the 3-D printer and adding clones of him. And of those clones, Cameron Carr of Baylor is the one worth dealing for, on paper. He’s a 6-foot-5 wing with a 7-foot-long wingspan. He’s got a 42-inch vertical leap. He features a high release point and a quick trigger. He’s got the quicks to close and the length to guard spots 1-4 on the floor. Even better, he’s 21, with seven or eight peak seasons still ahead of him. If you want someone who won’t back down whenever Jaden McDaniels, Ayo Dosunmu, Terrence Shannon Jr. and Anthony Edwards are hunting the HOV lane to the rim, Carr’s your guy.

Renck: Talking with our Nuggets expert Bennett Durando, the realistic targets for a deal start at 14 or 18 with the Charlotte Hornets and likely end with the Raptors (19) and Pistons (21). These are teams who want to become serious contenders after dipping their toes in the playoff waters last season. Would the Nuggets hit the reset button and ship Aaron Gordon to the Hornets for Carr or Texas’ Dailyn Swain? Or could they land Swain or Arizona rugged forward Koa Peat by inching up the ladder a few picks? Swain is a versatile defender who can get to the rim. He must improve as a shooter. Same goes for Peat. But Peat projects as an alley-oop replacement for Gordon, fitting perfectly with a space-creating center like Nikola Jokic. He would also add a layer of toughness needed on the boards and at the rim.

Keeler: Got to admit — I do like the idea of re-Peating with a younger Aaron Gordon playalike. I remember coming away impressed by what Peat did in Boulder a few months back (12-for-15 shooting from the floor) against CU. Downside? He doesn’t — at least, not right now, at any rate — have AG’s shooting touch, and it sounds as if teams will be perfectly content to leave him open anywhere past about 9 feet away from the rim. He also doesn’t have AG’s hops, mind you. Although it’s fair to wonder if AG at present has AG’s old hops, too

Renck: It is my belief that the Nuggets must go backward to compete with the league’s upper crust again. Trading Cam Johnson or Aaron Gordon — or both — makes sense to keep Peyton Watson. If a team wants to take Christian Braun’s contract, fine. But no salary dumps. The Nuggets need draft capital to maximize their reinvention over the next few years. They must hit on the first round. DaRon Holmes II has been a ghost since being drafted due to injury and ineffectiveness. As long as Jokic is on the Nuggets, they are a postseason team. But how they play in the postseason will depend largely on the drafts the next two seasons. It is worth moving someone to move up.

Keeler: Said it before, gonna say it again: You need more P-Swats on this roster, not fewer. While his contract is a beast to move, Jamal Murray’s trade value might never get any higher than it is right now, given a spate of (relatively) good health. Nuggets Nation has wanted the Zeke Nnaji contract moved for what feels like a decade now — but I’d imagine that trading up to the 12-16 sweet spot of the first round will require a much bigger piece on the table than our man Zeke, sadly. And a much bigger swing on the part of the three-headed monster that is Josh Kroenke, Jon Wallace and Ben Tenzer. But that said, Carr’s upside is more than worth it. The Nuggets could do a lot worse than the second coming of Devin Vassell or Trey Murphy III. If you’ve only got one more chance to remake your core around the Joker, why not go wild?

Colorado State Patrol troopers responded to the crash on southbound E-470 near 48th Avenue at about 6:19 a.m. Thursday, after a 34-year-old man “intentionally jumped” in front of a Chevrolet Silverado truck, according to a news release from the agency.

The man died at the scene of the crash and will be identified by the Adams County Coroner’s Office.

“This investigation is early in the process, and it is unknown at this time what led to the incident,” state patrol officials stated in the release.

As of 9:10 a.m., southbound E-470 had reopened between mile marker 23 near 38th Avenue and mile marker 24 near 48th Avenue, E-470 spokesperson Shelby Costello said in an email to The Denver Post.

Additional information about the crash was not available on Thursday.

This is a developing story and may be updated.

“You will see a significant reduction in the time fresh food is sitting on the trailer before it actually gets to a store, and it also gives us a lot more flexibility when you think about weather,” said Amy Probst, a senior vice president with Target.

Palisade peaches that might have been shipped from Grand Junction to a distribution facility in Denton, Texas, only to make the trip back to the Front Range, now can come straight down Interstate 70.

And the facility, beyond serving an 11-state region, will be a central transfer point where vendors can bring their products to one location rather than having to drop them off at multiple warehouses.

The facility contains more than half a million square feet of refrigerated space and will employ 380 warmly dressed workers, including 37 holding salaried positions.

Wages for the hourly positions will range from $15 to $24, Probst said. The facility will run around the clock, with most workers on four 10-hour shifts, with three days off.

Target employs 9,300 people across 45 stores in Colorado, as well as at a dry goods distribution facility in Pueblo and a sorting center in Denver. Employees at other locations are being offered the chance to work in Thornton.

The company has hired employees from careers outside distribution, said Juan Armendariz, who joined the company in February.

Target takes the time to bring its workers up to speed and has a focus on safety, he added. But the work isn’t for everyone.

“You have to like cold,” he said.

Most of the facility is kept at a constant 34 degrees , which is balmy compared to the minus 15 that those working in the freezer section must endure.

A focus on healthier options

Although both got their start as general merchandisers, Target has lagged Walmart in appreciating the power groceries have to drive store traffic and sales.

Walmart now accounts for just under a fifth of U.S. grocery sales, followed by Kroger, the parent company of King Soopers, and Costco, with about 10% each.

Albertsons, which operates in the state as Safeway, and Ahold Delhaize USA, owner of Food Lion and Giant, round out the top five grocery providers.

Target falls into the bracket of the next five largest grocery retailers, but it historically has been treated as a “fill-in” rather than a “stock up” source of food.��“Fill-in,” as in grabbing a gallon of milk while shopping for school supplies after remembering the jug at home is running low.

Until recently, the company relied on third-party vendors to distribute its fresh food offerings, which increased supply costs by adding middlemen.

Walmart, by contrast, built a “hub and spoke” distribution model for refrigerated goods and mastered the art of moving items with a short shelf-life.��Its efficiency allowed it to beat larger grocery-dedicated chains in price and, over time, surpass them in sales.

Playing catch-up, Target has built three new distribution hubs in the past four years to replace the capacity third-party partners previously provided.

Thornton represents its fourth and largest facility in square footage, and it has enough room to allow for an expansion in the products that can be carried, Probst said.

The new center will allow Target to offer its customers a greater variety of products, improve freshness and carry healthier options, she said.

Target has overhauled its food and beverage lineup to include more health and wellness items, like premium protein and meat products and products that promote improved gut health.

The “mass wellness” strategy, as some analysts describe it, also emphasizes “clean” ingredients. In late February, the ��from its cereal line by May.

“Certified” refers to FDA-inspected synthetic colors, typically derived from petroleum sources, such as Blue No. 1 and No. 2, Red No. 3 and No. 40 and Yellow No.5 and Yellow No. 6.

“We know consumers are increasingly prioritizing healthier lifestyles, and we’re moving quickly to evolve our offerings to meet their needs,” said Cara Sylvester, executive vice president and chief merchandising officer at Target, in a release in February.

The company has reformulated its in-house Good & Gather brand to reduce artificial colors and sugar content. And to keep in the retailer’s good graces, national suppliers have reformulated their cereals and other products.

WK Kellogg Co., for example, is providing Target with an exclusive Wild Berry version of Froot Loops made without certified synthetic colors.

And the retailer plans to carry more exclusive boutique brands, like Boulder-based Purely Elizabeth, which will provide a Protein Granola, and new offerings from Lovebird out of Minneapolis.

Target is known for its mass-market prestige or “masstige” lines in clothing and home decor, such as its partnership with Missoni, the Italian apparel design house, and its collaboration first with Michael Graves and then Studio McGee for household goods.

“We’re just seeing a lot more celebrity and design intention within our food and beverage. That’s a fun element, and we are seeing a lot of growth there,” said Ashley Lowes, a spokeswoman for the company.

Top Banana

But curated brands won’t ever dethrone the uncontested king atop the grocery store food pyramid — the common banana.

Highlighting its importance, the tropical fruit receives special accommodations at the new food distribution center with 12 dedicated rooms, said Sean Walker, quality manager at the new facility.

Bananas, as they are at most grocery stores, are the top-selling item at Target, surpassing other staples like milk, eggs and bottled water in popularity.

In contrast to more seasonal fruits, they remain available and popular year-round. But that requires providing special ripening rooms where they can bathe in ethylene after arriving in the U.S.

Bananas release the gas naturally during ripening as complex starches turn into simple sugars, and the green chlorophyll in the peel softens.

But soft bananas don’t travel well. It takes about six to eight days for a newly arrived and green banana to get the proper yellow tan required to head to market, under the watchful eye of a ripening system powered with artificial intelligence.

Ten of the rooms are “single” rooms that can accommodate 21 pallets at a time, and two of the rooms are double rooms. Each pallet carries a ton of bananas.

If all the rooms were at capacity, the Thornton facility could host about 1.5 million or more bananas at any given time.

A strong Colorado connection

Target’s first location opened in 1962 in a suburb of St. Paul, and when the retailer expanded outside of Minnesota in 1966, it didn’t head to neighboring Wisconsin or Iowa.

Instead, Colorado received two stores, and six decades later, the one launched in Glendale remains one of the company’s most active.

Colorado has one of the highest concentrations of Super Target stores, which have expanded food and beverage sections. And the company’s focus on wellness plays well in a state that was at the center of the health food movement in the 1960s and 1970s.

The food distribution center represents an investment of more than $300 million, a significant chunk of the $5 billion in capital spending Target plans to make this year.

It will serve 130 stores in a region stretching from Salt Lake City to Kansas City, Mo., and from the Dakotas down to Texas.

“This gives us the added capacity to really continue to accelerate growth in food and beverage,” Probst said.

Colorado should see additional Super Target stores opening in the years ahead, part of the ongoing investment the company is making.

And existing stores in the state should see fresher food compared to the previous system that brought food in from Denton, Texas, and Cedar Falls, Iowa.

Regional suppliers also should benefit. Several consolidation docks between the inbound and outbound sides of the building will handle vendor shipments.

After arriving, those items will be transferred immediately into other outbound trucks, along with other incoming deliveries, and sent out to other warehouses.

The setup is designed to reduce the number of stops and miles that vendors have to complete to reach the various distribution facilities. And the trucking firms that Target contracts with can operate with fuller loads.

But it will also mean a lot more trucks on the road in Thornton.

Thornton Mayor Jan Kulmann, who attended the center’s opening ceremony along with several Thornton City Council members on May 20, said the area is commercial with no residential nearby.

Food processors operate in the area, and the hope is that the distribution center will drive more of them to locate there.

As to truck traffic, the center is on Washington Street, south of E-470 and east of Interstate 25.

Trucks will have easy highway access and will spend a minimal amount of time on local roads, like Washington Street, which has been expanded to handle higher freight volumes, she said.

“They have a good plan for managing it,” she said.

Target has also agreed to help the Food Bank of the Rockies and Food for Hope with its surplus product, she said.

“This is a long time coming, this phenomenal development,” City Councilwoman Francoise Bergan said before Thursday’s groundbreaking for Prairie Point by .

More than 1,600 homes are planned for what will be a community of diverse types of housing at a range of prices, said Ryan Delp, the Colorado division president for Oakwood.

Aurora, like many cities in a metro area where median home prices are far above the national level, aims to offer a variety of options for people who want to live in the city. Mayor Mike Coffman said the homes at Prairie Point will be geared more toward middle-income and above homeowners, but he said more choices will have ripple effects.

“Every time we add to the supply, it affects prices and brings them down,” Coffman said. “And that’s helpful to families trying to get a home.”

More choices are good, Ted Leighty said. “We need more Prairie Points.”

Planned communities have the flexibility to build a mix of stock, from starter homes and duplexes to upscale houses on bigger lots, said Leighty, CEO of the and the Home Builders Association of Metro Denver. He pointed to the pushback by Denver-area residents to building more high-density housing in neighborhoods to make room for lower-income and first-time home buyers now priced out of the market.

“It makes new master planned communities even more important to meet our housing needs,” Leighty said.

Leighty and others talked about a mismatch in the Denver-area market between home prices and what people can pay. The median price of a residential property sold in April was $605,000, up from $590,000 in March, according to the Denver Metro Association of Realtors.

Denver had the 13th-highest median home price out of 49 metro areas analyzed by a residential real estate brokerage firm. The median home sale price nationally was $396,173, up 2.4% from April 2025.

said that although the overall housing inventory has increased, transactions remain sluggish. The organizations’ research found that a significant share of buyers can’t afford the homes for sale.

“The mismatch is especially severe in the middle of the market,” the report said. “In most markets, lower- and middle-income households face a shortage of listings within their price range, while listings at higher price points are relatively more abundant.”

The report scored different parts of the country on how well buyers’ incomes align with home prices. The nationwide score was 74.9% in March, meaning on average, households can access only about three-quarters of the housing opportunities.

The score is an improvement from 66.7% in March 2025, but still below the pre-pandemic level of 84.4%, said Hannah Jones, senior economist at realtor.com. Denver’s score was about 74.5%, up 8.3% from 2019.

There were 11,539 homes listed for sale in metro Denver in April, up from 9,845 in March, the reported. Jones said the metro area’s inventory was 60.5% higher than in April 2019.

“That’s a stark contrast to the national picture,” Jones said.

Nationwide, about 1 million homes were for sale in April, about 5% more than a year earlier but 11.9% below pre-pandemic levels, according to the real estate groups’ report. Portions of the South and West have higher inventory levels because construction increased, Jones said.

“Home prices haven’t come down as significantly as a glut of inventory would suggest,” she added.

The price per square foot in Denver was around $293 in April, compared with approximately $210 in April 2019, Jones said.

Higher interest rates are among the reasons for a more stagnant market. Jones said in many markets, including Denver, homeowners feel locked in by pandemic-era, sub-3% mortgage rates.

“The cost to deliver a new home has risen faster than household incomes. We’re also at a time where land, labor, materials and insurance costs have increased,” JPMorgan Chase’s Denver team said in a statement.

Leighty, with the Colorado and metro homebuilders’ associations, said other factors are fees charged by local governments to pay for the impacts of development. Those include the costs of utility connections and building permits. Water service makes up the largest share of the overall fees.

The Home Builders Association of Metro Denver released last year that looked at how fees charged by 16 metro-area jurisdictions affect home prices. Leighty said Commerce City has reviewed its fees as a result of the analysis.

“One reason why we did this study is to foster a dialogue with the local governments about the right balance between fees that are there for a purpose, to ensure communities have the resources to grow, but also make sure they’re not using new housing development to potentially cover the cost of other areas of service or administering the city,” Leighty said.

Ultimately, the fees are “going to be baked into the cost of the home,” he added.

The association’s study found that the average total fees paid in the 16 jurisdictions analyzed were about $68,000 for a single-family detached home and $52,000 for single-family attached homes, such as duplexes and triplexes. In five jurisdictions, fees made up more than 10% of the average closing price of a single-family detached home, the analysis said.

“We do need to keep homeownership within reach of more people,” Leighty said, “and right now, that’s a difficult proposition in Colorado.”

The ‘missing middle’

Those would-be buyers who often are priced out of the market are middle-income earners, Leighty said.

“The ‘missing middle’ is real in Denver and nationally, because the economics of new construction often requires higher price points, which leaves teachers, nurses and first responders stretched financially,” a JPMorgan Chase spokesperson said.

Leighty said increasingly longer wait times for all the permits and documents needed to go forward with construction also add costs, especially if developers are carrying loans on the project.

The pace of new residential construction in metro Denver has decreased in the past couple of years. “During the pandemic, we were actually building at a pretty fast clip,” Leighty said.

The number of new housing starts peaked during the pandemic at 17,110 in 2021, according to data from the home builders’ association. The total includes single-family detached and attached homes.

The totals fell to 12,352 housing starts in 2024 and 10,066 in 2025.

During its 35 years in Colorado, Oakwood Homes has focused on bringing “attainable, affordable solutions to the market,” Delp said. That means providing for the first-time homebuyer, someone looking for more square footage or retirees looking to downsize, he said.

“We’re going to have different segments, hitting those different home sizes and price points” at Prairie point, Delp said.

Delp expects the infrastructure and land development to be completed in about a year and half and sales and home construction to start. Features will include an 18-hole, par-72 golf course, a swimming pool, parks and trails.

Oakwood has received interest from multiple homebuilders, Delp added. Oakwood started discussions on the planned community around 2017.

Oakwood paid $44.6 million for the land in 2021.

“This land is one of the last large undeveloped sections inside the E-470 loop. And what makes it especially rare is that so much of the surrounding infrastructure is already here,” he said.

It means travelers in the future might be able to rely on better train and bus service to get to DIA. The shift occurred last month as a required federal review began for the project to fix Peña Boulevard, the mostly two-lane freeway linking Denver with the airport and booming northeastern suburbs. Funding remains uncertain for the project, expected to cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

GreenLatinos, Greater Denver Transit, the Southwest Energy Efficiency Project, and other groups have been challenging highway projects around metro Denver that could worsen air pollution — including DIA’s planned widening of Peña Boulevard. They argue that road expansions provide only a temporary fix and, in the longrun, draw more traffic.

“Are we really going to just keep on widening roads for vehicles?” GreenLatinos director Ean Tafoya said. “Don’t people care about the air emissions?”

Boosting the frequency of Regional Transportation District�� trains by adding track — initially excluded from DIA’s Peña — combined with construction of bus-only lanes for faster bus access, will now be evaluated as a core alternative, airport planners told the Denver Post.

“Rail expansion and other transit alternatives are under consideration,” DIA project manager Danielle Yearsley said in an emailed response to questions. “A full range of alternatives is being considered through the National Environmental Policy Act review process, including alternatives that the previous Peña Master Plan screened out.”

The NEPA planning process requires careful study of the environmental pros and cons of multiple alternatives to be eligible for federal funding. The would have to approve DIA’s final decision.

Dealing with traffic congestion on Peña has become a headache for air travelers and nearby residents. Vehicle traffic increasingly backs up along the road, which runs 11 miles from Interstate 70 to DIA’s main terminal. The average drive time, once eight minutes, has tripled to 24 minutes. Unpredictable jams and rear-end accidents sometimes hang up drivers for more than half an hour.

During peak travel periods, RTD runs trains along its 23-mile A Line linking Denver Union Station with DIA at “the highest frequency possible” — every 15 minutes, an agency spokeswoman said. The ride costs $10 one-way and takes about 37 minutes with trains reaching speeds of 79 miles per hour. But the frequency decreases to around half an hour in the evenings and early mornings. Buses to and from DIA often run only once an hour.

The A Line commuter trains, powered by overhead electrical lines, typically include two 91-seat cars, and can carry more than 300 passengers, according to RTD’s . That means the A Line theoretically could move 60,000 people a day to and from DIA. But the average daily ridership has decreased from 24,000 in 2019 to about 20,600, agency records show. In August 2025, 650,000 riders boarded the trains, down from 744,000 in August 2019. Meanwhile, Peña Boulevard carries an average of 187,000 vehicles a day, according to airport data.

Denver councilman Kevin Flynn questioned rail expansion as a viable alternative, pointing to excess capacity on the A Line and raising concerns that trains aren’t accessible for some metro residents.

“Transit improvements that serve the whole of the metro area would be a valuable addition to the Peña Boulevard study, and express bus service from points around the vast airport travelshed not served by the A Line would make excellent use of a managed-lanes expansion,” Flynn said. “The unfortunate reality is that expansion of the A Line could never be financed while the trains are still running far below their existing capacity.”

When Denver built the airport and Peña Boulevard around 1993, the FAA provided airport improvement grant funding in 1989 and 1996 to help acquire land. In accepting those funds, Denver agreed to conditions that included following FAA rules for acceptable and prohibited uses of airport revenue.

Then, over three decades, Denver and Aurora promoted residential, commercial, and industrial warehouse development in the area, increasing truck and other traffic on Peña Boulevard, complicating access to the airport.

Denver Mayor Michael Johnston’s administration will “continue to support development around Denver International Airport,” mayoral spokesman Jon Ewing said, adding that “public transit will always be something we explore.”

Given DIA’s role as “the largest economic engine in the region,” Ewing said, “it is paramount that any changes to Peña Boulevard reflect our needs today as well as our needs 50 years from now, and we expect the study currently underway to inform any decisions.”

FAA officials this week reiterated their position that their agency “will not fund any portion of the Peña Boulevard project” because “the road is not a dedicated airport access,” agency spokeswoman Crystal Essiaw said.

However, “the FAA agreed the airport can use airport revenue to fund part of the Peña Boulevard expansion project,” Essiaw said.

That portion hasn’t been determined.

A petition from Greater Denver Transit advocates, Green Latinos, the Sierra Club, Denver Bicycle Lobby, and SWEEP proposes the creation of a large parking lot near RTD’s 40th & Airport station, close to the I-70 interchange where Peña Boulevard begins. Airport travelers could take the A Line from the lot for the final stretch to DIA.

Public transit advocates also have called on RTD to establish new bus routes along the E-470 beltway linking Highlands Ranch and Parker with DIA, similar to the that links DIA with Boulder.

“Across the country, it����ap been demonstrated that widening roads does not resolve traffic congestion over the long term,” Greater Denver Transit co-founder James Flattum said. “If we make the A Line more frequent, we can eliminate that inefficient step for travelers of waiting around in a parking lot for a diesel shuttle, and drivers to the airport can skip Peña traffic congestion,” he said. “We want to make transit competitive with driving for getting to and from the airport.”

Colorado State Patrol troopers were called to at 11:42 a.m. for a fatal pedestrian crash, the agency said in a news release.

Troopers investigating the crash found that a 59-year-old man in a Toyota SUV pulled over onto the right shoulder, got out of his car and was standing in front of the SUV when he walked in front of a semitruck that was driving in the right lane.

The man died at the scene, and investigators determined it was a suicide, the state patrol said.

The truck driver, a 49-year-old man, stayed at the scene and was not injured.

All but one lane of northbound E-470 reopened at 2:27 p.m.

Anyone experiencing a mental health crisis can call or text 988, 24/7, to reach the , which is free and confidential.

The health-care construction clustered in parts of metro Denver that have seen above-average population growth since 2020, and which state demographers project will continue to grow over the next decade.

And hospitals are building with the expectation those areas will continue to grow — three of the new towers going up have floors with no immediate use planned, including one where unfinished space accounts for nearly half of the project.

Hospital systems and reported 13 projects in various stages of construction this year. They only detailed costs for eight, which totaled $824 million. Since the projects without cost information include a hospital tower and extensive work on three outpatient clinics, the actual total likely approaches $1 billion.

Colorado doesn’t have any way of quantifying whether areas need more hospital beds, and health systems generally described their recent projects as bringing specific types of care closer to communities, rather than relieving a crunch on their existing facilities.

That falls in line with how hospitals generally focus on expanding, consultant Allan Baumgarten said: They offer outpatient and emergency services in growing, well-off communities to start building patient loyalty.

“You want to create lots of front doors to your system,” he said.

Douglas County in particular saw a health care building boom: started work on an expansion of its Parker hospital and a new freestanding emergency room in Castle Rock, while built an addition to its Highlands Ranch hospital, Kaiser Permanente expanded its Parker offices and began preliminary work on a campus in Meridian, an unincorporated area near Lone Tree.

Other major projects in the metro area this year included a new tower at Mountain Ridge hospital in Thornton, a cardiology center at AdventHealth Littleton, an urgent care center with primary care offices that UCHealth is opening in Green Valley Ranch and a campus AdventHealth is building in the Aurora Highlands planned community, which its spokeswoman said will eventually grow into a new hospital.

UCHealth’s existing primary care clinic in Green Valley Ranch was already full, and Highlands Ranch Hospital hit its 10-year growth projections within four years, said Merle Taylor, president of the system’s community hospitals in the Denver area, including Highlands Ranch, Broomfield and Longs Peak. The system aims for its Aurora and Highlands Ranch hospitals to run about 85% full, but sometimes they fill every bed during flu season, he said.

“We want to make sure we’re meeting (residents’) needs and their demands in our communities,” he said.

Expansions reflect population growth

The locations where health systems built this year at least partly reflect population trends.

Douglas County had the second-largest increase in population since 2020, adding almost 34,000 residents, according to the . Adams County came in third, with a population increase of about 23,000. Weld County had the largest increase.

The state demographer’s office projected Douglas and Adams counties will remain in the top three for the next decade, with each adding about 69,000 residents by 2035. The office noted in November that Colorado faces challenges as fewer immigrants come and more are deported or choose to leave the country, while migration from other states slows because of high housing costs.

The southern end of the metro area is growing significantly, creating an increase in demand for care, but AdventHealth is looking at opportunities on multiple sides of Denver, spokeswoman Rachel Robinson said.

The emergency room and urgent care center south of downtown Castle Rock won’t replace the hospital on the north side of town, Robinson said. The hospital will handle complex cases, while people who need immediate care for routine injuries and illnesses can save about 15 minutes of driving time, she said.

“It’s simply bringing care closer to where people live,” she said in an email.

Kaiser Permanente estimated the number of patients using the Parker clinic as their primary medical home has increased by about 3,000 since 2020. The system bought a piece of land in Parker back in 2009 to eventually build its own site instead of leasing an office, said Michael Ramseier, president of Kaiser Permanente Colorado. The new Parker offices opened over the summer.

“Obviously, Colorado’s grown significantly, and we want to make sure we’re capturing that proportional growth,” he said.

The system is also replacing outdated buildings in Lakewood and Westminster, while expanding the populations they can serve, Ramseier said. A new clinic and urgent care center is going up next to the existing building in Lakewood, which wasn’t the easiest place to navigate after three expansions over multiple decades, he said. The new Lakewood offices will open in January, but the Westminster project, which will add an urgent care facility and ambulatory surgery center, won’t wrap up until 2028.

“We’ve got a huge population there (in Lakewood), it’s one of our biggest, but it was a 50-year-old property that needed upgrades,” he said.

Health systems built with an eye toward continued growth this year. AdventHealth’s new Parker tower has three floors without an immediate use planned, and UCHealth’s Highlands Ranch tower has two. They likely won’t stay empty for long, though, Taylor said.

“Some time over the next three years, we’re going to need those,” he said.

In HCA HealthOne Mountain Ridge’s expansion, about 17,000 of the 36,000 square feet are “shelled” space that it could build out in the future. Shelled space has outside walls and windows to enclose it, but doesn’t have interior walls or full utilities.

When constructing something like a new tower, which would expand up instead of out, building space you might not immediately need is cheaper than going back and adding floors later, said Ryan Thorton, president and CEO at HCA HealthONE Mountain Ridge.

The estimated demand in the hospital’s service area grew about 12.5% over the last four years, and the hospital needed more beds for general medical and surgical patients, he said.

“With continued growth in service needed in northern Denver, we anticipate the 24 additional beds in 2026 will ensure we have adequate capacity to treat the growing population, but are prepared to expand as necessary,” Thorton said in an email.

Adding services, increasing income

The new construction fits with an overall pattern of health systems around Denver increasing their incomes by adding services to their existing campuses, buying independent hospitals, or building new facilities, said Baumgarten, the consultant.

Growth in freestanding emergency rooms has slowed down after a building boom about a decade ago, but interest in ambulatory surgery centers, urgent care and outpatient offices is picking up, he said. Those facilities tend to be cheaper to run than inpatient hospitals, and patients increasingly choose them, or are nudged by their insurance to do so.

Hospitals tend to choose high-visibility locations near major highways in areas where most people have either job-based insurance or Medicare, Baumgarten said.

In many ways, the construction in Douglas County fits that pattern. UCHealth Highlands Ranch Hospital is close to C-470 and AdventHealth Parker sits near E-470, while the new AdventHealth freestanding emergency room will be just off Interstate 25.

According to the , Douglas County was the wealthiest in the state as of 2023, with a median household income of about $146,000 — meaning half of households earn more and half earn less. Of the nine counties with median incomes over $100,000, Douglas County was the only one to grow by more than 4,000 people since the 2020 census.

“You want to capture as much of that affluent and well-insured population as possible, and you want to be early to get there,” because people tend to develop loyalty to doctors and hospitals, Baumgarten said.

Colorado doesn’t require hospitals to prove that an area needs additional medical facilities, and local zoning boards typically welcome hospitals as a source of high-paying jobs and a way to make their communities more attractive to potential residents, Baumgarten said. Bond market investors could put the brakes on a project if they won’t buy because they’re convinced it won’t generate sufficient returns to repay them, he said.

Baumgarten said he’s skeptical of new construction that isn’t in medically underserved areas, because patients and their insurance have to cover a hospital’s fixed costs, including any bonds that went to build it.

“I’m of the belief that all of this construction has to be paid for,” he said.

Hospitals have to be prepared for growth in their communities so people aren’t left waiting for care while they try to catch up, said Dan Mager, spokesman for the Colorado Hospital Association. Typically, they do a deep analysis of future care needs before investing, he said.

“Standing up new resources for a community is an expensive endeavor with ongoing costs — so it requires thoughtful consideration — and indicates there is a need right now or an expected need in the near future,” Mager said in a statement.

How hositpals decide when to expand

Defining whether an area is underserved can be tricky.

The federal government has designations for areas with shortages of , but not for hospital services. The , which compiles annual reports on hospital finances, doesn’t have a way of measuring demand for hospital services in communities, other than collecting information about what community members identified as important in regular needs assessments hospitals must perform, spokesman Marc Williams said.

In general, policymakers like to see about three general hospital beds for every 1,000 people in an area, but communities with older and sicker residents may need more, said Dr. Richard Leuchter, an assistant professor at .

But when hospitals are deciding whether to expand, they rely on more complex formulas to determine how many beds they need to keep their emergency departments from backing up, he said.

Laypeople can’t easily reproduce those calculations without insider data, and some easier-to-find metrics, such as occupancy rates, don’t tell the full story, Leuchter said. For example, a hospital that performs a large number of outpatient surgeries might show up as 50% full, when the truth is that every bed is full during the day and almost all are empty overnight, he said.

Weldy Feazell, director of economic development for the town of Parker, said she hasn’t heard about residents struggling to get hospital care, though it was probably time for a facility upgrade, since the AdventHealth hospital went up about two decades ago. She has heard some complaints about difficulty finding a primary care doctor, which the Kaiser Permanente expansion will help address, she said.

Parker has added about 7,800 residents since 2020, putting it sixth for growth behind Aurora, Denver, unincorporated Douglas County, Castle Rock and Erie.

As the community has grown, health systems have seen an opportunity to let people get specialized care, such as cancer treatment, without driving to Denver, Feazell said. After all, most people don’t love spending time on Interstate 25, especially if they’re feeling a bit off after a procedure, she said.

“They’re just trying to find ways to bring it closer to home for people,” she said.

Health system construction projects in metro Denver in 2025

AdventHealth

• : Adding a nearly 24,000-square-foot facility with a new freestanding emergency room and urgent care facility with primary care offices on site, at a cost of $28 million. Opening in fall 2026.
• : Adding a 186,000-square-foot tower with four operating rooms, 30 general patient beds, 30 beds for cardiac and stroke patients and two heart procedure rooms, at a cost of $300 million. Opening in February 2027.
• : Added a 143,000-square-foot facility providing heart and stroke care, with spaces for surgeries, less-invasive procedures and cardiac intensive care, at a cost of $150 million. Opened in August.
• : Building a new campus, starting with an 88,000-square-foot building that includes a freestanding emergency room, an imaging center and 27 exam rooms, at a cost of $81 million. Opening in September 2026.

CommonSpirit Health

• : 42 acres of land. The system hasn’t released specifics about its plans for the site. Work began in the third quarter of the year.
• : Added a 133,000-square-foot tower with 30 beds primarily for surgical patients, a cancer center, a 25-bed intensive care unit, 30 beds primarily for cardiac patients and two operating rooms, 18 postpartum beds and 30 general beds. Units opened gradually between August 2024 and December 2025. CommonSpirit didn’t state the cost for the expansion.

Denver Health

• : Constructing a new 82,500-square-foot building to replace the existing center, with primary care, dentistry, obstetrics, physical therapy and imaging, at a cost of $100 million. Opening in 2027.
• : Renovating a 14,700-square-foot leased space with 16 exam rooms for older adults to get primary and specialty care, a pharmacy and a lab, at a cost of $9.5 million. Opening in 2026.

HCA HealthOne

• : Added a 36,000-square-foot tower, with 24 new beds, at a cost of $36.5 million. Opened in August.

Kaiser Permanente

• : Built a new clinic that is about 7,000 square feet larger than the previous one, with eight new exam rooms and the ability to do more video visits. Opened in July. Kaiser Permanente declined to share the cost of its new construction.
• : Built a 116,500-square-foot replacement for the existing offices, with primary care, physical therapy, a pharmacy and an urgent care center. Opening in January 2026. Kaiser Permanente declined to share the cost of its new construction.

UCHealth

• : Added a 12,000-square-foot facility with primary care offices, an urgent care center, physical therapy and imaging. The building already existed, but UCHealth paid to convert it to a health care space, at a cost the system didn’t release. Opened in spring 2025.
• : Adding a 119,000-square-foot tower and 75,000-square-foot medical office building, with 14 emergency room beds, new operating rooms and labs for cardiac procedures and expansions of the cancer center and neonatal intensive care unit, at a cost of $119 million. Partially opening in February.

Intermountain Health

• The health network didn’t provide detailed information, but said it expanded its cancer center at Saint Joseph Hospital and leased a space for a new clinic near Empower Field at Mile High.

The semi-truck’s trailer was hauling drivetrain components for a windmill that shifted during transport, causing the trailer to break, according to the Colorado State Patrol.

Troopers were called to the scene just before 5 a.m. Saturday near milepost 20.

The southbound E-470 exit for Aurora and I-70, exit 20, is closed as emergency crews work to remove the semi from the road, state patrol officials said.

“Motorists should plan on an alternative route,” the agency said Saturday morning.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Fresh off a recent meeting with the team, Douglas County’s three commissioners weighed in publicly for the first time to urge the NFL franchise to build a new football stadium in a place that “can deliver like no other.” They added their voices to that of Lone Tree Mayor Marissa Harmon, who is pitching the planned City Center development off Interstate 25 as a perfect site.

In a statement shared exclusively with The Denver Post, amped up local officials’ call for the Broncos to vacate the city where they’ve played for 65 years.

“Douglas County is open for business and proud of our reputation for intentional, strategic partnerships that strengthen our economy without raising taxes, whether that����ap welcoming a Fortune 500 enterprise, supporting a local family-owned business or exploring the opportunity to host Colorado’s most iconic team,” the commissioners said.

Relocating to Douglas County, the commissioners wrote, would place the Broncos “just minutes from Dove Valley and Centennial Airport, with unmatched access, infrastructure, and convenience for players, fans, and executives alike.” Dove Valley is where the Broncos’ practice facility is located.

Commissioner Abe Laydon told The Post that he and his two colleagues met recently with team president Damani Leech and other Broncos executives but declined to provide details about the conversation.

Douglas County Commissioner George Teal said the meeting took place on Aug. 6 and lasted “about an hour.” It was the first meeting that all three commissioners have had with the Broncos regarding a new stadium location, he said.

But Douglas County isn’t new on the team’s radar.

For months, the Broncos have acknowledged that, in addition to Burnham Yard in west-central Denver, they are also considering Lone Tree, a suburban city of 15,000 in northern Douglas County, as a potential stadium site if they decide to leave Empower Field at Mile High. The team’s lease at Empower Field expires in early 2031.

The team has also said it is looking at Aurora for a new home.

The team, , has played in two stadiums — each bearing the Mile High moniker — just west of downtown Denver since 1960.

Despite the entreaties from suburban locales to build a stadium outside Colorado’s capital city, most reporting this summer has pointed to evidence that the Broncos are most strongly exploring a site that would keep them in Denver. Recent media reports say the team and its owners are connected — through a series of limited liability corporations and lawyers — to more than $150 million spent over the last year to purchase more than a dozen parcels of land near Burnham Yard. The state-owned, 58-acre former railyard is in the La Alma Lincoln Park neighborhood.

But that hasn’t quelled interest from surrounding communities to be the franchise’s next home. This week, Harmon described the city’s talks with the team as “exploratory and constructive” in a statement by 9News.

She highlighted , a planned development at the southeast corner of I-25 and Lincoln Avenue, as “metro Denver’s next large-scale vibrant downtown.” The 440-acre site, the mayor said, aligns with the Broncos’ vision of “an activated, year‑round destination integrated with transit, walkable streets, and first‑class mobility.”

Lone Tree sits near the confluence of three major highways — I-25, C-470 and E-470 — and is at the terminus of the Regional Transportation District’s southeast light rail lines.

But “no formal proposals have been submitted, and no decisions or commitments have been made,” Harmon said.

Broncos spokesman Patrick Smyth told The Post that the team has had “several productive conversations” with Lone Tree officials while also “engaging with” Douglas County commissioners.

A source with direct knowledge of the talks said the Broncos have been in communication with Lone Tree and Douglas County officials more recently and frequently than officials from the Aurora Economic Development Council. Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman said this week there’s been “nothing new” regarding talks between the city and the team.

“We appreciate these ongoing discussions and continue to carefully evaluate all options pertaining to the future of our stadium,” Smyth said.

In Lone Tree, most of the City Center site — north of RidgeGate Parkway — is owned by the Coventry Development Corp., the city says. It’s part of that spans both sides of the interstate.

An email obtained by The Post through a public records request confirmed that Broncos general counsel Tim Aragon met with Lone Tree city officials as early as January 2024. In an email sent after that meeting, Aragon asked executives at Coventry about site-specific environmental reports, which they didn’t have.

Aragon also asked about Federal Aviation Administration height restrictions that might apply because of the proximity to Centennial Airport.

“We are trying to understand the soil and any issues especially in the circumstance where we might have to dig a bit to fit within height restrictions,” Aragon wrote.

More than 18 months after that outreach, Douglas County commissioners slathered some complimentary and self-congratulatory frosting on this week’s invitation to the three-time Super Bowl champions to make their next home 20 miles south of Empower Field at Mile High.

“The Broncos deserve the very best, and in Douglas County, that����ap exactly what they will find,” they said.

Staff writer Parker Gabriel contributed to this story.

Officers attempted to stop the driver of a vehicle near Hoffman Boulevard and Potomac Street about 9:30 a.m. Friday, said Gabby Easterwood, public information officer for the Aurora Police Department. The suspect took off, leading to a chase and a rollover crash involving the vehicle near the junction of E-470 and Interstate 70, she said.

The passenger in the vehicle was transported to a hospital then to jail, Easterwood said. The driver fled on foot and unsuccessfully attempted to carjack another vehicle about 9:45 a.m., she said.

He then stole a Kia and led police on another chase, which ended with a crash near East 40th Avenue and Tower Road about 10 a.m., Easterwood said. The crash involved multiple vehicles and briefly closed the northbound lanes of Tower Road. But the suspect was the only person injured in those crashes. He remained hospitalized Friday, although police hadn’t received an update on his condition, she said.