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Denver Coliseum Replacement Plan Revived, But Elyria-Swansea Residents Push Back
The National Western Center is resurrecting a decade-old proposal for a 10,000-seat arena to replace the Denver Coliseum, but community members in Elyria-Swansea are fighting to keep the arena south of I-70 and preserve land for housing.
The National Western Center is reviving a long-dormant plan to build a new 10,000-seat arena to replace the aging Denver Coliseum, setting off a fresh clash with residents of the Globeville and Elyria-Swansea neighborhoods who say the project threatens to displace their community's future.
The proposal is part of the final phase of the campus redevelopment, known as the Triangle Community Vision Plan, which covers 92 acres north of Interstate 70. The new arena would move from its current location south of the highway to a site north of I-70, closer to the core of the National Western campus.
"The vision for the Triangle Community Vision Plan is to imagine with the neighborhoods how this can be so much more than what has been here for the past 100 years," said Mike Bouchard, executive director of Denver's Office of the National Western Center. He added that the plan aims to rebuild connections so the campus is "no longer an island but really integrated with the neighborhoods that it lives in."
But the arena has been a flashpoint for years. Denver voters rejected funding for a new arena in 2021, and community members continue to organize against the revived proposal.
Jessica Herrera, whose family was forced out of their home during the I-70 reconstruction and widening project in the 1990s, is among those leading the pushback. Her home was one of dozens removed to make way for the expanded highway and campus.
"We're fighting for the arena not to be on that land where we want it to be houses and be a community, like it once was before, for generations," Herrera said.
While Bouchard says the plans include affordable housing, Herrera argues the proposed densities don't match what residents want. "Every scenario that they gave us is at least 8 to 12 stories high," she said. "We've told them we do not want our area looking like RiNo whatsoever. We want our community just to be houses."
Herrera and dozens of others in the GES Coalition have drafted an alternative plan that keeps the arena south of I-70. They warn that placing it in the middle of Elyria would bring roughly 1,000 cars in and out of the neighborhood daily, along with added pollution.
The National Western Center has spent the past two years engaging residents in Globeville and Elyria-Swansea through numerous community meetings, but Herrera says the two sides remain at odds. The dispute underscores broader tensions over how Denver balances major economic development with the legacy of neighborhood displacement, especially in working-class communities of color that have historically borne the brunt of large infrastructure projects.