If all goes according to plan, the Denver Broncos’ new stadium will sit in a historic neighborhood steps from light rail and a future heavy rail stop, bookended by green space and about 1,000 feet from one of the city’s biggest highway interchanges. It’s the kind of sports district urbanists sketch in notebooks: trains at the front door, a park as the front yard, a stitched-back street grid as part of a relatively small footprint and year-round life that doesn’t end when the clock hits zero.
The Broncos on Wednesday submitted a Large Development Review to the city that lays out a conceptual map for how a stadium-anchored neighborhood at Burnham Yard could come together. The filing landed hours after voters approved a slate of “Vibrant Denver” municipal bonds, including Issue 2A for transportation and mobility. It won with 61% support and includes the reconstruction of two aging viaducts near the site, a key project to make this site actually work.
With the vote out of the way, the team put its first draft on paper. The preliminary plan places the stadium on the western edge of Burnham Yard, hard up against the BNSF joint line and farthest from the La Alma-Lincoln Park homes to the east. A long north-south greenway would wrap the stadium as a buffer, with housing, restaurants and offices lining new blocks. Eighth Avenue would be rerouted to improve safety and flow. A new gateway from Sixth Avenue would deliver drivers directly into the district. A pedestrian walk-up spine would run from RTD’s 10th and Osage station straight to the heart of the stadium campus. And a little nugget for maybe the far-out future, the team sketches a stop for Front Range Passenger Rail. If FRPR tracks, there would be a future intercity option that could stretch from Wyoming to New Mexico, dropping fans off a few steps from their seats.
Very early, but here's the map of the Burnham Yard area the #Broncos submitted today as part of their large-area plan. Includes a stadium site on the western portion of the land they've agreed to purchase around the railyard. pic.twitter.com/P2X8dzmgKC
— Parker Gabriel (@ParkerJGabriel) November 5, 2025
The city’s intake description puts the basics in black and white, unlike the colorful map above: a new Broncos stadium and surrounding mixed-use development in the area with major above and below-grade infrastructure — roadways, utilities and open space — to match. It’s early and conceptual, but the bones are clear.
For neighbors, the human impact begins with how people get around. Burnham Yard has been a barrier for some time — a long, fenced-off swath where tracks and viaducts split west Denver from downtown. The Broncos’ map shows how the hometown team can help erase that line. It pulls people toward transit, not parking lots like their current home just north on the highway. The map is a display of hope for a link between the Art District on Santa Fe, La Alma-Lincoln Park, the South Platte River trail and Broadway — creating safer, direct bike and pedestrian routes that would be useful year-round but very helpful on game days.
“[This] is an opportunity for the Denver Broncos to ensure the stadium and mixed-use community bring meaningful, lasting benefit to the area,” the team said in a statement, adding it is in “listen-first mode” as it works on the Large Development Review alongside a Community Benefits Agreement and a Small Area Plan. “Together, we will refine this conceptual layout into a detailed plan that respects the surrounding neighborhoods, adds new homes and creates vibrant community amenities and green spaces to be enjoyed throughout the year.”
A new website launched on Wednesday for updates on the site, newstadium.denverbroncos.com, starts with a land acknowledgment. Another display of just how seriously the Broncos are taking the history of the area. And this map displays that too, with Burnham Yard predating Colorado statehood, with its running of trains for more than 150 years. The two rail stops on site lay down a future vision for the region, which was shared by the Colorado Legislature when they created the Front Range Passenger Rail District (District) via SB21-238 in 2021. On a smaller scale, the Broncos can work with Denver and RTD on improving the current 10th and Osage stop. The map shows the team will keep the giant main train repair depot standing.
None of this lives in a vacuum. Mayor Mike Johnston has already said there’s “no Plan B” for the site, calling Burnham Yard the way to keep the Broncos in the city for the next 50 years while opening a once-in-a-generation development opportunity. The retractable-roof stadium the team prefers would host mostly outdoor football on natural grass — snow games included — while unlocking concerts, Final Fours and other events that largely skip Denver today. City leaders keep repeating the piece voters care about most: the stadium itself is privately financed, and there are no new taxes to build it. Public dollars and state partners are expected to handle the same kinds of roads, sidewalks and access improvements any massive project requires — including those two viaducts voters just backed.
There’s a second half to this story, too. When the Broncos’ lease ends, roughly 80 acres around Empower Field revert to Denver. Johnston has pitched that land for housing, plus parks and riverfront — all knitted into West Denver and downtown. If Burnham Yard becomes a connected district that leans on trains rather than tailgates, the old Mile High site doesn’t have to be a sea of parking anymore. It can be a neighborhood.
There are real tradeoffs to get right. La Alma-Lincoln Park and Baker are proud, rooted communities with long histories — from Chicano murals to small manufacturers to family-owned shops. A retractable-roof stadium with year-round programming brings jobs, investment and nightlife, but it also brings pressure: higher rents, more traffic, pressure on the neighborhood’s culture. That’s where the Community Benefits Agreement matters. Expect debates over on-site affordable housing, anti-displacement funds, protections for legacy businesses, local hiring, youth programming, public art and how to share game-day revenue with the people who already live here. Expect, too, hard conversations about noise, lights and where the cars go on Sundays.
The first public open house to weigh in on the redevelopment of Burnham Yard is on Nov. 19 at the La Alma Recreation Center.
The nuts and bolts are moving. The Large Development Review is a first draft that the city’s planners will vet and the public will be able to see when the intake is complete. The Small Area Plan will set the neighborhood rules of the road. Zoning follows next year if timelines hold. Environmental remediation — the unavoidable cost of turning a 19th-century railyard into livable 21st-century land — will have to be tackled before shovels hit dirt. Johnston has previously estimated that cleanup at Burnham Yard could run in the tens of millions of dollars.
The Broncos aren’t likely to break ground on the stadium portion of the project until 2027 at the earliest. If the process stays on track, the Broncos would open at Burnham Yard in 2031 and Empower Field’s asphalt would start transforming into something more useful than a tailgate. That’s the promise embedded in Wednesday’s map: a stadium district built like a neighborhood, a rail yard reconnected to the city with folks actually able to use those trains, a walk home that’s finally a walk — not a wade through parking lots.
Here's next steps #Broncos anticipate in stadium project at Burnham Yard, too, from large-development review pre-application.
Looks like overall infrastructure master plan anticipated Jan. 2026, overall site development plan June '26, building permits Jan. '27. https://t.co/eRqj3O0ctw pic.twitter.com/lV992pATwo
— Luca Evans (@bylucaevans) November 5, 2025
The Broncos’ preliminary map reads like a love letter to everyday urban life: get off a train and walk through a park to a game, grab dinner on the way back, and make use of the same spaces on a Friday without football. If the details follow the intent of the initial sketch, Burnham Yard could be the rare megaproject that helps the city function better on the other 350 days of the year the Broncos aren’t hosting games and winning a Super Bowl in their hometown.