Mayor Mike Johnston isn’t hedging on the Broncos’ future home. He says Denver is “all in” on building a new retractable-roof stadium at historic Burnham Yard — there’s no Plan B— and that the project can redefine both where the team plays and how the city around it lives.
Johnston shared new information with Richie Carni on Thursday’s edition of The Rundown on Denver Sports, mixing fan nostalgia with some hardcore bits about timelines, transit and tax dollars.
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“There is no plan B,” Johnston said, noting the city has “moved heaven and earth” to make Burnham Yard real — from helping Denver Water relocate roughly 20 acres to backing the Walton-Penner Family Ownership Group’s recent land buys around the long-dormant railyard. “This was the biggest win-win: keeping the Broncos in Denver for 50 years, getting a stadium that can host a Super Bowl and Final Four, and opening up about 180 acres of new development so people who love Denver can still afford to live here.”
So keep the Broncos downtown, build the roof you need to host the biggest events, and transform empty rail land into a year-round neighborhood that people actually use.
On Tuesday, the Broncos and city leaders named Burnham Yard as the preferred site for a privately funded stadium anchoring a mixed-use district just south of Empower Field. The current lease runs through March 2031, which lines up with a potential debut that fall. City Hall and the team keep repeating the part Colorado residents care about: no new taxes to build it.
There’s still a process. Johnston said the neighborhood area plan and a community benefits agreement will come first, followed by zoning — “next year sometime” — with the team handling on-site infrastructure and the city and state covering the public pieces like roads, sidewalks and access, same as any massive project. The details — street grid, stadium footprint, where housing and retail go — get hammered out with the community over the next six to 12 months.
If you’ve trudged out of Mile High through a sea of parking lots, you know why Johnston keeps pointing at Coors Field as the model. He wants Burnham Yard to change the formula for the Broncos and the city: walk out of a game into bars and restaurants, or straight to your apartment, or down the block to grab a bite on Broadway or a drink on Colfax. He says the giant brick railyard headquarters, anchoring a site older than the State of Colorado, will likely stay as a centerpiece. Which would give Union Station vibes right to the heart of Broncos Country.
A retractable roof is the key that unlocks the calendar. The Broncos still plan to play mostly outdoors on natural grass — yes, let the snow dump on the Raiders — but the roof gives you the ability to bid on what you can’t have today. Johnston says Empower Field does seven or eight non-Broncos stadium-scale events a year. Places like Allegiant (Las Vegas) and Mercedes-Benz (Atlanta) do 20-25.
“That takes us from about $300 million a year of economic impact to over a billion just from those increased numbers,” Johnston said, pointing to concerts, Final Fours and events like WrestleMania. He even relayed a personal one: he had to take his wife to Atlanta to see Beyoncé because she only played closed-roof stadiums. A retractable roof also means fewer lightning delays and fewer tours skipping Denver altogether.
The other half of this two-for-one: when the lease ends, roughly 80 acres at the current Empower Field site revert to Denver. Johnston wants that land to deliver affordable housing for teachers, nurses and firefighters, plus parks and riverfront access — all knitted into West Denver and across the river to downtown.
“When we own the land, we make the rules,” he said. “This is going to be a game changer for the neighbors of West Denver.”
Before shovels, there’s cleanup. The mayor estimates about $20 million in environmental remediation at Burnham Yard, a site that ran trains from the 1860s until about 10 years ago. Much of the land right now is held by the Colorado Department of Transportation and Denver Water, with the team adding parcels in recent months. Johnston says only an owner with the Broncos’ resources could realistically pull the conversion off.
This isn’t just policy for Johnston; it’s personal. He called the Broncos “the heart of this community,” recalling being shaken awake as a kid when John Elway chose Denver, crying through the Super Bowls in the ’80s and ’90s, and meeting his now-wife during the team’s first title run. It’s why he campaigned on keeping the team in the city — “over my dead body” — and why he’s pushing to lock in 50 more years downtown.
And he’s not out on an island. Sean Payton gave the plan a nod this week, praising Greg Penner and Carrie Walton Penner for moving fast with a forward-looking vision. Payton likes the natural grass, likes the elements, and likes that a roof adds flexibility for the events Denver wants — without touching the altitude edge that makes visiting teams miserable.
What’s next? Neighborhood planning and a community benefits agreement start shaping the details, zoning follows next year and the Broncos refine the design. If the timeline holds, remediation gives way to construction later this decade, Burnham Yard opens in 2031, and the Empower Field site swings back to taxpayers for housing, parks and river access. That’s a downtown stadium, more big nights on the Denver calendar and a pair of neighborhoods finally connected — the kind of win-win Broncos Country can cheer before the first kickoff.