A Denver committee postponed advancing a rezoning for a property located inside of, but separate from, the proposed Kroenke redevelopment of the Ball Arena parking lot after a councilmember lambasted the applicant and property owner.

The properties, located at 500, 501 and 551 Wewatta Street, are currently occupied by a two story office building though its current zoning allows a mixed use building of up to eight stories and has two soccer fields on site. It is surrounded by the massive, 70+ acre parking lot area of Ball Arena.

The property owner, Landon Scott, said the properties have been owned by his family since the 1970s and said they do not have any development plans in place if the zone change were to be approved. Options ranging from student housing to office space have been considered, Scott said, adding the city encouraged him to look into rezoning as the Kroenke Sports Entertainment (KSE) group started to move forward with its plans.

“As we got engaged from Kroenke Sports Entertainment talking about their rezone, we were encouraged by the city to look at it from a continuity standpoint and thought it was a good idea to rezone (our properties),” Scott said. “There was not a plan of attack but we were encouraged by the city to look at rezoning as part of what KSE was doing with their property.”

Scott said he is part of the KSE community benefit agreement and has been “kind of involved” with it, but not nearly as heavily due to the size differences between the areas

Council President Amanda Sandoval — who represents District One, not Seven where the property is located — appeared dissatisfied with the presentation and request. She spent several minutes lecturing Scott on how he could have taken the time to “be a leader” by doing community outreach ahead of the proposed rezoning.

Scott’s discussion on the property sizes appeared to irk Sandoval, who said the size difference is a “fallacy.”

“Land and acreage wise, yes it’s a smaller parcel compared to Kroenke… Height wise and density wise, that’s a fallacy, that’s not accurate,” she said. “You have the ability to build a point tower form on that site and that’s the only area we can have that form in Denver.”

A point tower is a tall and slender building. The 432 Park Avenue skyscraper in New York City is an example. However, the rezoning requested by Scott is only for a tower that can be a max of five stories or 70 feet – though if taking advantage of city incentives for affordable housing, there is no limit on the height.

The redevelopment of Ball Arena’s parking lot area will see many other large and tall structures come to the area, according to KSE’s renderings of the completed project.

These allowances for Scott, especially the point tower, appeared to form the core of Sandoval’s protests. In parts of her district, point towers cannot be built because they would be “inappropriate,” she said. Despite this, some areas in her district — including the Central Platte Valley — feature towers that are taller than five stories on similarly sized lots.

Further, the point tower was one of three building options presented by city officials to the committee. And Scott has no solid plans to redevelop the properties despite having engaged surrounding neighborhood organizations seeking their support.

Which he got.

This still was not enough for Sandoval.

“I am tired of having re-zonings come to city council and say ‘oh, we don’t have plans but we’re going to rezone it,’” she said. “I feel absolutely frustrated that this came in because I have been sitting in meetings for the (Kroenke Redevelopment) since I first got elected in 2019… I’ve spent five years talking about that site.”

“I’m disappointed that you are coming in at the last minute,” she added.

This statement prompted a community planning and development staff member to say the plans were not last minute. He said the owners have engaged in outreach with registered neighborhood organizations in the area, adding they’d be happy to do additional outreach in other areas.

Critically, the Auraria Higher Education Center, who represents the Auraria Campus area, supports the measure.

This wasn’t enough for Sandoval who said she didn’t accept that as an answer. She said there could be an independent community benefit agreement, separate from the one with KSE.

Sandoval requested the committee delay voting on the measure until December.

The item will appear before the South Platte River Committee again on December 11.