A map showing, in orange, the land in Adams County that Denver intends to give to Glendale-based Westside Investment Partners. The road at the bottom of the image is 56th Avenue. (Courtesy City of Denver)
Denver intends to give a developer 145 acres of land south near Denver International Airport in exchange for the former Park Hill Golf Course property, and will turn it into a park.
Mayor Mike Johnston announced the deal with Glendale-based Westside Investment Partners late Wednesday morning.
It comes after Denver voters thwarted Westside’s plans to develop the 155-acre property at the ballot box.
“This will be the largest acquisition of a new park to our park system in over 100 years,” Johnston said.
The deal, which still needs to receive final approvals, gives Westside land along 56th Avenue near Powhaton Road in Adams County — in the airport submarket where Westside already has holdings.
And Denver gets the now-overgrown golf course, which hasn’t operated since the end of 2018, and which the city unsuccessfully tried to buy once before. It will become the city’s fourth-largest park.
Denver Mayor Mike Johnston announces the land swap deal for Park Hill Golf Course on Wednesday. (Thomas Gounley/BusinessDen)
The backstory
The property has a complicated history. The golf course was owned for decades by Clayton Early Learning, a nonprofit that operates on the other side of Colorado Boulevard. In September 2017, the city announced it and Clayton had struck a $20 million deal for the city to buy half the property and lease the other half long-term.
But the city had missed a key detail. Arcis Golf, which leased the property and operated the course, had a right of first refusal in its contract with Clayton, meaning the company needed to have been given the option to match Denver’s purchase offer. Denver suspended the deal in November 2017, and Arcis sued Clayton the following spring.
Arcis renewed its lease, then closed the course at the end of 2018 when city stormwater improvements affected the property.
Then Westside moved in. In July 2019, the developer bought the property from Clayton for $24 million, and paid Arcis an undisclosed sum to end the litigation.
Westside was familiar with redeveloping large sites. It spearheaded the redevelopment of the former Loretto Heights University campus in southwest Denver.
The Park Hill property had a specific challenge, however. In the 1990s, during Mayor Wellington Webb’s administration, the city had paid $2 million to encumber it with a conservation easement.
“I never knew how much controversy it would have later in life,” Webb said.
When it bought the course, Westside bet that it would be able to work out a deal with city leaders to lift the easement and develop at least part of the site.
In November 2021, however, Denver voters passed a ballot measure backed by opponents of developing the course, which mandated that a conservation easement could only be lifted by a citywide vote.
That set up a second vote on whether to lift the Park Hill easement.
Westside made its pitch. The company said it would set aside 100 acres of the property as parks and open space. It said 25 percent of the residential units built on the remainder, including for-sale units, would be income-restricted. It said it would look to attract a grocery store. The site is near RTD’s 40th and Colorado rail stop, it noted, and elected officials talk regularly of the need for more housing.
Those fighting back, however, included Webb, who said Wednesday he didn’t consider anything that might have been built on the former golf course as affordable housing because Westside would have used a metro district to develop it.
“All of those fees would be put on top of the sale price,” he said.
Johnston, at the time running for mayor, said he supported developing the course. But in April 2023, however, roughly 60 percent of Denver voters opposed lifting the easement. The property was fenced off a short time later and has sat unused.
Penfield Tate, a former state senator who also fought against development, said Johnston pledged immediately after that vote — which also saw him advance to the mayoral runoff — that if elected he would work to acquire the course and make it a park.
No one from Westside spoke at Wednesday’s announcement of the deal. Reached by BusinessDen, Westside founder Andy Klein declined to comment.
Ex-mayor Wellington Webb, far left, sits waiting to speak on Wednesday alongside former state senator Penfield Tate, Park Hill resident Woody Garnsey and Jolon Clark, director of Denver Parks and Recreation. (Thomas Gounley/BusinessDen)
The swap, and the future
The land that Westside will get is undeveloped. It sits east of E-470 and north of 56th Avenue, straddling both sides of Valley Head Street, according to a map provided by Denver.
Costco and Walmart distribution centers are nearby. Amazon has been buying real estate to the north.
The land compromises part of a 320-acre Denver-owned parcel. Adams County’s website shows it valued at just $26,586. The county values a neighboring 166-acre undeveloped parcel owned by Walmart at $15.65 million.
Johnston said the deal involves an internal transfer of about $12.7 million from Denver Parks and Recreation, using the Parks Legacy Fund, to the city-owned Denver International Airport to secure the land for the trade. The deal with Westside is a pure swap and does not include any extra cash.
Adams County commissioners, along with the Denver City Council, still need to sign off on the land swap deal, which was first reported by the local CBS affiliate.
Westside is well-versed in the DIA submarket and has other nearby holdings. In 2022, it sold some of it for $49 million to PepsiCo, the beverage giant, for a new bottling facility.
Denver intends to reopen the property as “open space” with minimal improvement by this summer, according to the city. It will still be fenced off, but entrances will be added.
Denver will also work to develop a longer-term plan for the park, factoring in community input. While those plans are developed, Denver Parks and Recreation will build low-cost amenities such as a dog park, picnic tables, walking trails or a disc golf course.
The park will be the city’s fourth-largest, behind only City Park (which is a mile south), Sloan’s Lake and Wash Park.
