New Urbanism in Denver

By Terry Pristin
New York Times
June 1, 2005

DENVER - Since 2002, more than 1,500 houses have sprouted on land here that was once covered by runways from the earliest days of jet travel, as a 7.5-square-mile mixed-use development rises at the former Stapleton airport, about a 15-minute drive east of downtown.

Ultimately expected to have a population of 30,000 when it is completed in about 2020, Stapleton is believed to be the largest project ever undertaken to fill in vacant or underused urban land.

Set against a backdrop of the downtown skyline and the Front Range of the Rockies, the project has been widely praised as a model of "new urbanism." The houses, mimicking the style found in older, walkable neighborhoods here, are close together, with the garages in back and only the tiniest of yards. Front porches encourage passersby to stop and chat. About 1,100 acres have been set aside for parks.

"From our perspective, it's one of the best examples of 'smart growth' in the Denver region," said Will Coyne, the land-use advocate for Environment Colorado, a nonprofit organization that often criticizes large-scale development.

Homes at Stapleton are going up faster than anyone anticipated. Forest City Enterprises, the Cleveland-based company that was chosen in 1999 to manage the development of Stapleton, was required to buy 1,090 acres of the city-owned land in the first five years, a deadline it met in four. Residents can choose among about 20 home builders, with prices ranging from $100,000 or so for a condominium to more than $1 million for a house facing a park.

The one weak spot has been some of the condominium housing intended for low-income families. Recently, the developer - a local company without experience in affordable housing, according to Jackie Morales-Ferrand, the city's director of housing and neighborhood development - defaulted on $4.7 million in city loans. Ms. Morales-Ferrand said the condos might have been too small and too expensive for the market.

An ambitious project like Stapleton requires a vast amount of financing, much more than can be generated from residential property taxes alone. So, to enter Stapleton from Interstate 70 is to be confronted with the very emblem of suburban sprawl, a conventional 750,000-square-foot big-box shopping center called Quebec Square with huge parking lots that can accommodate 5,000 cars, a Wal-Mart Supercenter, a Sam's Club warehouse store and a Home Depot.

Big-box stores are not mentioned in the Stapleton development guidelines that were issued in 1995, the year that the 66-year-old airport was replaced by a much larger one. The plan is full of lofty language about creating a community with a "unique identity" and a "high-quality sustainable physical environment" that "accommodates a diversity of people - ages, incomes, races, occupations and lifestyles."

Zac Ryon, a consultant for nonprofit organizations, who moved to Stapleton because he wanted "the look of an old house with the closet size of a new house," says the community has attracted socially conscious residents who find the shopping center unappealing.

"The bulk of my neighbors won't shop there," said Mr. Ryon, who is also a spokesman for Gaypleton, a group with a mailing list of 180 people that aims to represent the development's growing population of gay residents.

A local research organization, the Front Range Economic Strategy Center, recently complained that Quebec Square had only a handful of local retailers and it criticized city policies that appeared to favor national chain stores.

But officials say that at Stapleton, as in many other large developments, the shopping center is being used to generate the tax revenue needed to transform the former airport. Another economic engine will be NorthField, a 1.1-million-square-foot outdoor regional mall being built north of I-70. It will include a Super Target Superstore, a Bass Pro Shop, a Foley's department store and a movie theater.

Officials estimated in 1999 that it would cost $346 million to build the major roads, sewer mains, drainage facilities and parks. To pay for most of these improvements, the Denver Urban Renewal Authority is using an increasingly popular program known as tax-increment financing, or TIF, backed by bonds to be repaid through the additional property and sales taxes generated by the project.

The city agency has issued $275 million worth of these bonds for Stapleton, its largest such project by far, said Tracy M. Huggins, the executive director. A part of the incremental revenue will be used to reimburse the city for the additional burden on services.

As a generator of tax revenue, however, retail is much more significant than housing. Hank Baker, a senior vice president at Forest City Stapleton, said that Quebec Square, which opened in 2002, brings in $8 million annually in property and sales tax, nearly seven times the amount from the project's first 1,000 homes. (An affiliated company, Forest City Ratner, is the development partner of The New York Times Company for its new headquarters in Manhattan.)

"Residential development doesn't pay enough taxes to pay for the services it requires," said John J. Huggins (no relation to Tracy), the city's director of economic development. "Retail development, especially large-format retail, is the most coveted kind for a TIF district."

As originally envisioned, Stapleton was to have 10 million square feet of office space. But so far, only 34,000 square feet have been built, with two small medical buildings under construction. There is no demand for new office space because of a high vacancy rate in the city - 20.8 percent at the end of March, said Reis Inc., a New York research company.

But major retailers were willing to open at Quebec Square before a single new home was built because they already had a critical mass of customers. Unlike communities built on undeveloped land, Stapleton is surrounded by mostly low-income neighborhoods whose residents were traveling beyond city limits to shop at stores like Wal-Mart, Mr. Gleason said. This demand helped city and community leaders reconcile themselves to Quebec Square, said Laura E. Aldrete, an urban planner who served as the city's project manager for Stapleton.

Ms. Aldrete said that Quebec Square was likely to be supplanted eventually by a town center with greater density. For one thing, a $4.7 billion light rail system approved by the voters in November is expected to have a Stapleton stop. "If you put the building blocks in today, you can begin to get a little bit comfortable with the idea that you're putting something suburban into an urban context," she said.

Mr. Gleason said that future retail development at Stapleton would be more in keeping with the newer 58,000-square-foot East 29th Avenue Town Center, which has a mixture of local and national tenants.

As Stapleton was being planned, said Mr. Huggins, the economic development director, it was not at all clear that the concept would work. But he said the project was attracting people who might otherwise have moved to the suburbs, adding to the sprawl. "They've managed to create a true community and sense of place very, very quickly," he said.