Image: A panoramic view of Denver facing west, showing the Elitch's Amusement Park and Broncos stadium.
The River Mile stretches for 62 acres along the Platte River, almost to Empower Field at Mile High.
The land from Speer Boulevard to the South Platte River in downtown Denver may as well be called “Kroenkeville”.
The Kroenke family — which owns the Colorado Avalanche, Denver Nuggets and other teams as part of a global sports conglomerate — now independently owns 117 acres of downtown Denver after Kroenke Sports & Entertainment, the family’s business arm in Colorado, announced it bought longtime partner Revesco out of the River Mile development on the banks of the Platte River.
According to an announcement sent by KSE today, the sale went through yesterday, June 11. Along with the land where Elitch Gardens currently sits, KSE now owns the triangle of land where immersive art exhibit Meow Wolf is, too. KSE and Revesco bought those properties in partnership in 2015 for $140 million.
The River Mile is a mixed-use redevelopment that covers 62 acres next to downtown Denver, with hopes of making Denver a “river city," according to the development website. Combined with KSE’s plan to redevelop the 55 acres around Ball Arena, the Kroenke family can create its own downtown sector within the next 25 years.
“Realizing sole ownership of these properties will allow us to streamline our comprehensive vision for the future development encompassing the River Mile and the adjacent Ball Arena campus,” Stanley Kroenke, KSE owner and chairman, says in the announcement. “We are grateful to Revesco for many years of productive collaboration.”
The announcement did not specify a sale amount or what prompted the transaction. As of 11 a.m. on June 12, the Denver Tax Assessor’s website has not registered the sale and still lists Revesco as part owner.
According to the Denver Tax Assessor, the River Mile land was most recently assessed at $2.7 million for the purpose of property taxes, though the actual value of the land is close to $10 million. The parcel where Meow Wolf sits was assessed at $39.9 million in 2024, with $1.8 of that value being from the land itself and the rest from “improvements.”
Meow Wolf opened in 2021 after Revesco partnered with the Santa Fe arts conglomerate to build the facility, throwing in $50 million. The immersive art space is the first part of the River Mile development, with retail and residential high rises to come, along with infrastructure designed to connect the community to the river like pedestrian bridges, fishing spots and built spaces that allow access to the South Platte.
Renderings of people lounging on a grassy riverbed with glass buildings in the background.
The River Mile development plans to integrate the river with a new mixed-use neighborhood.
The River Mile plans to finish building its first neighborhood for the project at Speer Boulevard, dubbed Headwater, in 2027, according to the River Mile website. However, construction still hasn't started yet.
River Mile leadership has always eventually planned to move Elitch’s to another location so the amusement park’s land can be used as part of the development, but in the announcement of the sale KSE indicated that, at least for now, Elitch’s isn’t going anywhere.
“A day at Elitch’s is a rite of summer for more than a million visitors annually,” Mike Neary, KSE executive vice president says. “We intend to keep it that way and better than ever.”
Before construction on land starts, the River Mile is investing an estimated $130 million toward restoring the South Platte River, from Confluence Park to Colfax Avenue, as part of a massive project in collaboration with the City of Denver and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to revitalize the river from Sixth Avenue to 58th Avenue.
Denver City Council rezoned the River Mile land in 2018 to allow the development plans to move forward. Last fall councilmembers did the same for the Ball Arena redevelopment, unanimously approving rezoning the area and exempting the plans from a viewplane that would have restricted the height of buildings there.
Between the two projects, KSE will expand Denver’s downtown by 40 percent over the next several decades.