Denver city planners are moving forward with a plan to build a bridge over Speer Boulevard that would connect downtown to Ball Arena and future development around it.
A concept plan submitted earlier this month suggests the proposed bridge, dubbed “Wynkoop Crossing,” would connect the Chopper Circle in front of Ball Arena to WeWetta Street on the other side of Speer Boulevard. The idea is to boost business revenue around downtown by feeding more foot traffic, and to pave the way for the development of a hotel and shopping plaza in front of Ball Arena, home of the Denver Nuggets, Colorado Avalanche and some of the city’s biggest concerts every year.
Kroenke Sports & Entertainment (KSE), which owns Ball Arena as well as the Nuggets and Avalanche, has been touting the idea of the bridge since last September, shortly before the company secured Denver City Council approval to work on a massive, 55-acre redevelopment plan around Ball Arena during the next two decades.
But before the bridge and attached development plans can appear back in front of the city council for final approval, they need the green light from the Downtown Design Advisory Board (DDAB) first. A nine-member board with design review oversight of proposed projects in the Golden Triangle, Auraria Campus and Arapahoe Square areas of downtown, the DDAB took its first look at Wynkoop Crossing on Tuesday, September 23.
After reviewing KSE’s plans for the area, the board passed a motions to advance the project to a design development phase, and to study how it would affect a few different elements of Denver’s long-term vision for the area. Here are several highlights of Wynkoop Crossing, including the bridge and proposed hotels, apartments and bike trails in the area.
Wynkoop Crossing
The bridge was designed by a company called Shears Adkins Rockmore, which was also involved in designing Denver’s Meow Wolf building, student housing on the Auraria Campus and the Dairy Block complex in downtown Denver. The design was based on a handful of existing bridges, including the Campo Volantin Footbridge in Bilbao, Spain, the High Line in New York City and the Center Street Bridge in Des Moines, Iowa.
Coming out of Ball Arena and onto Chopper Circle, people would see a green terrace with businesses, including places to eat. If they continue into the terrace, it would begin to elevate and turn into a walkway passing apartment lobbies, plants and seats, with the slight incline leading people onto the bridge. According to KSE plans, apartment buildings and future hotels on both sides of the walkway are expected to keep it shaded most of the day. A drop-off zone for one hotel is planned for 12th Street, which would run under the elevated walkway leading to the bridge.
The bridge would take people Speer Boulevard and split into two paths; planners stressed to the DDAB that it would be accessible for cyclists, pedestrians and scooters. The east side of the bridge, which would be called the LoDo landing, would have stairs and a lily-pad-shaped loop to bring people down onto Wazee Street. The bridge would end on the west side of the Cherry Creek Trail, so pedestrians would then need to walk to the bridge that already exists on Wazee Street to file into downtown, just a block north of Union Station.
Although the bridge bears the name of one of Denver’s downtown streets, it’s named “Wynkoop Crossing” because it would create a small road just north of Auraria Parkway, and developers said they want to name that strip “Wynkoop Way.”
Speer Boulevard drivers would see the bridge’s arches and wires, making it look like a harp. It’s meant to look like arches on the Speer Boulevard bridge and others along the thoroughfare, according to the KSE plan.
KSE Redevelopment
Last October, the Denver City Council gave KSE the green light to turn the 55 acres of parking lots around Ball Arena into a new neighborhood and retail center during the next twenty years, with more than 300 housing units, nearly 300 hotel rooms and several businesses on the ground floors. KSE’s proposal called for a connection between Ball Arena, Coors Field and Empower Field to form a “Sports Mile,” but the Broncos recently announced they’re moving to Burnham Yard in the La Alma Linclon Park neighborhood.
The vision is similar to the nearby River Mile redevelopment, a plan to turn 62 acres of land along the South Platte River, from Meow Wolf and Colfax Avenue to Speer Boulevard, and just north of Ball Arena and the future Wynkoop Crossing. KSE is also behind the River Mile redevelopment, and gained full control over the land in June when it bought Revesco out of its stake. Homes and retail are also part of the plan to turn River Mile into a “mixed-use” district within the next 25 years.
Wynkoop Crossing is an early and integral part of KSE’s push to set up the Ball Arena development plan as an intersection between downtown and the River Mile redevelopment.
“Wynkoop Crossing will be the spark that ignites the development of the Ball Arena Master Plan,” KSE wrote in an April concept plan. “The KSE-Ball Arena Redevelopment site is positioned at the nexus of local, district, city, and regional elements…these improvements will provide a new regional connection between the South Platte River (and trail), to the Arena property, LoDo and Downtown.”
Downtown Bike Lanes, Cherry Creek Trail
According to KSE’s plan, Wynkoop Crossing is supposed to make walking and cycling safer around Ball Arena, with the company touting it as connection for major city biking networks.
For a few years, the City of Denver has been planning a 5280 trail, a network of biking paths that can take through the Auraria Campus, La Alma Lincoln Park, the Golden Triangle, Capitol Hill, the Ballpark District and the Highlands.
City planners note that the west landing of the bridge would touch part of the 5280 trail as it runs along 11th Street, and KSE could develop that section of the trail. However, that’s only a small section of the trail along 11th Street, immediately outside of Ball Arena and in front of the terrace leading to Wynkoop Crossing. One of the DDAB motions on Tuesday was “to continue to study the relationship” between that section of the 5280 Trail and KSE’s plans.
The bridge would also feed into the Cherry Creek Trail. The loop on the LoDo landing can lead cyclists, runners and pedestrians onto the trail, and it would create nonstop link between the Cherry Creek and the proposed 5280 trail that wouldn’t exist without Wynkoop Crossing, according to information shared at the DDAB meeting.